Abstract
Tea plantations have expanded rapidly during the past several decades in China, the top tea-producing country, as a result of economic development; however, few studies have investigated the influence of tea plantations on the carbon cycle, especially from the perspective of climate change and increases in extreme weather events. Therefore, we employed combined observational and modeling methods to evaluate the water and carbon cycles at representative bamboo and tea plots in eastern China. Green tea growth and the corresponding water and carbon cycles were reproduced using the Community Land Model after applying fertilizer. Old-growth bamboo was reasonably simulated as broadleaf evergreen forest in this model. The mean observed soil respiration ranged from 1.79 to 2.57 and 1.34 to 1.50 µmol m−2 s−1 at the bamboo and tea sites, respectively, from April 2016 to October 2017. The observed soil respiration decreased by 23% and 55% due to extreme dryness in August 2016 at the bamboo and tea plots, respectively, and the model reproduced these decreases well. The modeling results indicated that tea acted as a stronger carbon sink during spring and a stronger carbon source during autumn and winter compared with old-growth bamboo. The carbon cycle was affected more by extremely dry weather than by extremely wet weather in both the bamboo and tea plots. Extremely dry periods markedly reduced the carbon sink at both plots, although this trend was more pronounced at the tea plot.
Highlights
Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world and is one of the “business cards” of Chinese culture
We aimed to evaluate the performance of the widely used Community Land Model (CLM) model in modeling the growth and C cycles of bamboo and tea ecosystems, to analyze the complete C cycles in these two plots, to investigate the influences of land use change from moso bamboo to green tea on the C cycle, and to investigate the influences of extreme weather and climate events on the growth and C cycles of these two ecosystems
The model reproduced the seasonal dynamics of the observed soil water content at various time
Summary
Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world and is one of the “business cards” of Chinese culture. Driven by economic development and the rise in living standards, tea plantations have expanded rapidly over the past several decades in China. China currently has the largest area of tea plantations and produces the most tea in the world, accounting for approximately 60% and 50%. The area of plantations in China is currently around 30,000 km , which increased by 143% from 2000 to 2014, representing the most rapid increase worldwide [1]. Tea production is predicted to increase by 55% from 2013 to 2023 [2]. This rapid expansion in tea plantations must be achieved by reducing the area of other land types, in most cases causing deforestation, because tea is usually planted in hilly areas in China
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