气候变化领域集成服务门户

Mediterranean climate areas are home to highly relevant and distinctive agro-ecosystems, where sustainability is threatened by water scarcity and continuous loss of soil organic carbon. In these systems, recycling strategies to close the loop between crop production (and agro-related industries) and soil conservation are of special interest in the current context of climate change mitigation. Pyrolysis represents a recycling option for the production of energy and biochar, a carbonaceous product with a wide range of environmental and agronomic applications. Considering that biochar functionality depends on both the original biomass and the pyrolysis conditions, we produced and characterized 22 biochars in order to evaluate their potential to sequester C and modify soil physicochemical properties. The pore size distribution was a function of the original biomass and did not change with the temperature of pyrolysis. The highest number of pores within the size 0.2-30 mu m, relevant for plant available water retention, was reached at 600 degrees C. However, ideal pyrolysis conditions to optimize C stability and hydrologic properties was reached at 400 degrees C in woody derived biochars, as higher temperatures lead to a nontransient hydrophobicity. This study highlights relevant physicochemical properties of locally derived biochars that can be used to tackle specific challenges in Mediterranean agroecosystems.