EGU22-3517, updated on 22 Mar 2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-3517
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Portable low cost devices for in situ measurements of CO2 exchange and vegetation spectral indices: Design and first results.

Reena Macagga1, Danica Antonijevic1, Rodrigo Monzon1, Rinan Bayot2, Matthias Lueck1, Michael Asante3,4, Leonce Geoffroy Sossa4, Pearl Sanchez2, Juergen Augustin1, and Mathias Hoffmann1
Reena Macagga et al.
  • 1Leibniz Center for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) eV, Program area 1 Landscape Functioning, Berlin, Germany (reena.macagga@zalf.de)
  • 2Agricultural Systems Institute, College of Agriculture and Food Science, University of the Philippines Los Baños, 4031 College Laguna, Philippines
  • 3CSIR-Savanna Agricultural Research Institute, P. O. Box TL 52 Tamale, Ghana
  • 4Université des Sciences, des Techniques et des Technologies de Bamako (USTTB), BP E 423, Bamako, Mali

Measurements of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO­­2) play an important role in finding solutions to mitigate the global climate crises. In case of direct treatment comparisons, dynamic manual closed chamber systems are often used to measure the CO2 exchange and determine the treatment corresponding net ecosystem C balance (NECB). These measurements are commonly accompanied by records of non-destructive spectral vegetation indices such as RVI and NDVI, which can be used to validate obtained CO2 flux dynamics, to improve the accuracy and precision of determined CO2 exchange during gap-filling, and for up-scaling purposes. However, commercially available systems for both measurements of CO2 exchange and spectral vegetation indices are usually cost-intensive, which resulted in a long-term focus in GHG research on the northern hemisphere and the fact that studies on agroecosystems in sub-Saharan Africa as well as Southeast Asia are still being underrepresented.

We present two portable, inexpensive, open source devices to measure in situ 1) CO2 fluxes using the manual closed chamber method; and 2) vegetation spectral indices, such as NDVI and RVI. The CO2 flux measurement device consists of a combination of multiple low-cost sensors, such as a NDIR-based CO­2 sensor (K30FR; 0-10,000 ppm, ± 30 ppm accuracy), a DHT-22 (humidity and temperature) and a BMP280 (air pressure). Sensors are connected to a bluetooth enabled, battery powered, compact microcontroller based logger unit for data visualization and storage.  The handheld, NDVI measurement device consist of a combination of two faced up and two faced down visible (AS7262) and IR (AS7263) sensors, as well as a CCS811 and BME280 for parallel measurements of relevant environmental parameters (e.g., ambient temperature and relative humidity). Sensor control, data visualization and storage is implemented using again a bluetooth enabled, battery powered, compact microcontroller based logger unit. Here, we present the design, and first results of both low-cost devices. Results were validated against results of customized CO2 and NDVI measurement systems using regular scientific sensors (LI-COR 850 and SKR 1840(ND) and data logger components (CR1000). 

Keywords: CO2 exchange measurements, closed chamber, NDVI, low-cost open source DIY device

How to cite: Macagga, R., Antonijevic, D., Monzon, R., Bayot, R., Lueck, M., Asante, M., Sossa, L. G., Sanchez, P., Augustin, J., and Hoffmann, M.: Portable low cost devices for in situ measurements of CO2 exchange and vegetation spectral indices: Design and first results., EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-3517, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-3517, 2022.