This blog was written by Robbert Moonen, researcher at Utrecht University and a member of the CloudRoots Amazonia field experiment. Utrecht, May 27th. Good news! After months of preparations, packing, and bureaucratic efforts our instrumentation has touched down on Brazilian shores. While our measurements at the Brazilian Amazon Tall Tower…
Manaus, February 2022, 8 AM. Already hot and humid. The CloudRoots Amazonia 22 field experiment starts. It is planned for August 2022, but preparations are well in advance due to the complexity of the experiment. With a team of the Meteorology of Air Quality Group together with two groups from…
This article has been written by Saskia Visser, with contributions from Janjo de Haan, Jennie van der Kolk, Dorothee Tol-Leenders and Rudi Hessel. We expect a great deal from our soils. And, as we have previously explained, rightly so: soils that are treated well and managed properly can make an…
As a student, I did a six-month internship at TropenBos. During my internship I lived in the rainforest in British Guiana. There I slept in a hammock and washed myself at the river that ran along the camp. I enjoyed the sight of the enormous diversity in the forest. It…
I live in the Netherlands, with over 17 million inhabitants it is a densely populated country, in which we managed to provide a use for each and every piece of land. Land is extremely valuable; the lease prices for the agricultural land are by far the highest in Europe, and…
The soil has a vital role to play in our future circular economy. Agricultural soils attract a lot of attention of policy makers. Maintaining the productive function of the soil and its capacity to store organic matter and water are key issues. Soil biology is also in the spotlight. A…
The European Environment Agency (EEA) recently asked us to investigate the issue of ‘Policy streamlining for biodiversity and ecosystem services’. Policy streamlining in this case, is the process of bringing together different policy measures in order to achieve improved delivery of policy objectives. For example: how could different, occasionally conflicting…
I must stop promising you things. I promised you to write the next blog before Tessa and Robert were leaving and here I am… Yvonne just left the house to go back to the Netherlands and Dalila and I are the only ones left in a house that a week…
Forests have a strong place in human culture. They played a role in human evolution, are the subject of fairy tales, have been ancient and modern places of worship, are the settings for adventure movies and have always been a source of food and shelter. Most of us value forests,…
Excuse me for the delay of this blog (again), but I have a good reason for that: Belo Horizonte. Remember my global summary of the last blog about what we were going to do in the coming week? Well, the expectations I had at that time were only a glimpse…