ReKKS

"Innovations for Sustainable Use of Agricultural Resources and Climate-adaption in the Arid Steppes of Kazakhstan and Southwestern Siberia (ReKKS)"

Plant-accessible water is the limiting factor for agricultural yields in the arid steppe. Therefore, the sub-project “Improvement of water supply” headed by the UFZ is involved in the entirety of technology experiments aimed at improving soil tillage. It is intended to develop a weighable lysimeter station consisting of two gravitation lysimeters for this climate region in cooperation with the company UGT. Hereby, the quantitative and qualitative parameters of the soil water budget for the study area are to be recorded in a long-term online operation. In addition, the lysimeters will be equipped with climate measurement technology and soil hydrology sensors in order to examine the processes occurring in the soil. The extraction and subsequent analysis of seepage water samples from different depths and at the lysimeter outlet furthermore provides information concerning the nutrient budget.
This lysimeter station is also supposed to serve as base station for the recording of climate change effects in the region (steppe areas of Central Asia), as there is currently a lack of high-resolution measurements concerning the development of the actual evapotranspiration, which is considered to be an important parameter by the IPCC and is supposed to be recorded comprehensively as grid point for modeling studies.