Development of JAGFLUX: An eddy covariance flux tower network in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, the second largest delta in the United States

The Mobile-Tensaw Delta comprises one of the United States most important urban-influenced coastal systems. Known as the “North America’s Amazon”, the Mobile-Tensaw Delta has experienced significant anthropogenic disturbance such as from logging, land- cover change, and hydrologic modification. This region is also extremely susceptible to the consequences of climate change. On the land, these consequences include temporal trends and variability in temperature, precipitation, evapotranspiration and primary productivity. Whereas from the water, stressors include sea level rise, increasing salinity, changing period and frequency of wetland inundation, and changing sedimentation regimes. In combination, trends and variability in the environment are expected to increase plant water stress and alter water and carbon cycling processes in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. Eddy covariance is of great use to several regulatory and commercial applications, related to environmental and water management, industrial monitoring, agricultural production, and other areas where directly measured energy, water vapor or gas exchanges, emissions and budgets are of interest. Major flux measurement networks exist to provide global synthesis, which allows interpretation of one particular site in the context of world-wide observations. Automated and semi-automated technical tools are now also available to expand the use of automated flux stations, individually and as a part of cross shared flux networks, into modelling and remote sensing with global coverage and local resolution. In the JAGFLUX network, we are designing and implementing a structure of eddy covariance towers throughout the Mobile-Tensaw Delta in order to understand the responses of different terrestrial ecosystems on releasing/absorbing water to and from the atmosphere and emitting/absorbing carbon to and from the atmosphere. The idea is to create a network of eddy covariance flux towers over hardwood evergreen forests, wetlands, marshes and also agricultural areas in the surroundings. These towers, together with remote sensing (satellite) data and modeling we will be able to investigate, e.g., how different ecosystems in the Delta are behaving, both spatially and temporally, in terms of acting a sink or source of carbon. Moreover, the measurements will help to improve fundamental, process-level understanding of the vegetation structure across the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, serving as a basis for future studies addressing the future link between forest degradation, water-use efficiency, and climate change in the region.