Project information
Title
Greenhouse gas (GHG) production in Swedish fiberbanks – combining GHG measurements and microbial analysis for improved assessment (FIB-GHG)
Project manager at Linnaeus University
Marcelo Ketzer
Other project members
Anna-Karin Dahlberg, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences; Sarah Josefsson, Geological Survey of Sweden; Alizee Lehoux, Uppsala University; Catherine Paul och Carolina Suarez, Lund University
Participating organizations
Linnaeus University; Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences; Geological Survey of Sweden; Uppsala University, Lund University
Financier
Formas
Timetable
1 Jan 2023–1 Dec 2026
Subject
Environmental Science (Department of Biology and Environmental Science, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences)
Website
Investigating greenhouse gas production in Swedish fiberbanks (SLU)
Greenhouse gas (GHG) production in Swedish fiberbanks – combining GHG measurements and microbial analysis for improved assessment
More about the project
In the aquatic environment, heavily polluted fiberbanks, originating from pulp and paper industry discharges during the 19th and 20th centuries, produce large amounts of greenhouse gases (GHG).
The gas is produced when microbes degrade the wood fibers under anaerobic and sulfate-free conditions. The rate of organic matter degradation is dependent on both environmental factors (e.g. temperature and salinity) and the cooperation of different microbes, in which methanogens are responsible for the final degradation step leading to methane production.
Because of the predicted increase in temperature in the future due to climate change, GHG emissions from fiberbanks are expected to increase, with a risk of increased contaminant dispersal. For better assessment of fiberbanks as a source of GHG more research is needed to understand which parameters affect methanogenesis in this unique type of sediment and how the GHG production differs in various aquatic environments in Sweden.
In FIB-GHG we will study fiberbanks in limnic, brackish and marine waters and investigate how methane production varies spatially and vertically within fiberbanks with different fiber types and how the production is linked to the distribution and composition of the microbial communities. We will also determine the methane concentration in the water column above fiberbanks to explore how much of the methane released that is oxidized in the water and how much is emitted to the atmosphere.
The project is part of the research group Environmental Geochemistry and the Linnaeus Knowledge Environment Water.
