Agrocampus Ouest

About: Agrocampus Ouest is a education organization based out in Rennes, France. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Soil water. The organization has 2160 authors who have published 3219 publications receiving 75606 citations. The organization is also known as: Institut supérieur des sciences agronomiques, agroalimentaires, horticoles et du paysage & Higher Institute for agricultural sciences, food industry, horticulture and landscape management.

DOC sources and DOC transport pathways in a small headwater catchment as revealed by carbon isotope fluctuation during storm events

Abstract: Monitoring the isotopic composition ( 13CDOC) of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) during flood events can be helpful for locating DOC sources in catchments and quantifying their relative contribution to stream DOC flux. Highresolution ( 2 ‰), and others yielding a very restricted range of values ( 80% of the stream DOC flux flows through the most superficial soil horizons of the riparian domain and (ii) the riparian soil DOC flux is comprised of DOC coming ultimately from both riparian and upland domains. Based on its 13C fingerprint, we find that the upland DOC contribution decreases from ca. 30% of the stream DOC flux at the beginning of the high-flow period to < 10% later in this period. Overall, upland domains contribute significantly to stream DOC export, but act as a sizelimited reservoir, whereas soils in the wetland domains act as a near-infinite reservoir. Through this study, we show that 13CDOC provides a powerful tool for tracing DOC sources and DOC transport mechanisms in headwater catchments, having a high-resolution assessment of temporal and spatial variability.

AGRIBALYSE®, the French LCI Database for agricultural products: high quality data for producers and environmental labelling

Abstract: AGRIBALYSE is a French research program dedicated to producing Life cycle inventories (LCI) of agricultural products, based on a strong partnership of 14 research and technical institutes. It provides a homogenous and consensual LCI database to support environmental labelling policies and to help the agricultural sector to improve its practices. The public LCI database of more than 100 products and its detailed methodology report were published in 2014. The database mainly contains LCIs for average French products, the functional unit is the product mass (kg) and the perimeter cradle-to–farm-gate. The datasets go along with a detailed methodology report and a project report, both available at: www.ademe.fr/agribalyse). Several key objectives for a follow-up project have already been identified: better estimate of uncertainties, accounting for soil carbon dynamics, impacts on biodiversity and impacts of water consumption. Enlargement of the database with additional products and products from innovative systems is also demanded, as well as stronger connections with international programs. These issues should be addressed in a future AGRIBALYSE 2 program.