THE SMALL EARTH NEPAL

The Small Earth Nepal (SEN), Central Department of Hydrology and Meteorology (CDHM), Tribhuvan University (TU) and Society of Hydrologist and Meteorologist (SOHAM) – Nepal, organized a talk program “Soil GHGs emission response to land use change in tropics, Southwest China” on 08 December, 2023 at CDHM, Kirtipur, Kathmandu.  Prof. Dr. ZHOU Wenjun,  delivered the talk program, which was attended by 21 participants, mostly students from CDHM and Central Department of Environment Science (CDES), TU and Professors. Prof. Dr. Zhou Wenjun is an Associate Professor at the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who studied the effects of climate change and land use change on forest and farmland ecosystems. Prof. Dr. Zhou shared her research on how land use change in tropics affects soil GHGs emission, a key factor of global greenhouse changes. Her research was in Xishuangbnana, South of China, where tropical rainforest has been deforested and replaced by rubber plantation over the past 50 years. She showed how soil GHGs emission varied with topography, hydrology, soil water content, season, and fertilizer application. She found that N2O and CH4 fluxes were significantly influenced by the soil moisture and the post-drought rainfall events. Also found that fertilizer increased soil N2O emission, but did not affect soil CO2 and CH4 emission, in rubber plantation. She concluded that water is the main factor of GHGs emission in rubber plantations. Her research provided important insights into the impacts of land use change on soil carbon and nitrogen cycles and climate change.