Eddy Covariance as Service (ECaaS) and System of Systems (SoS) Architecture for commercial scale, low cost, rapid deployment of coordinated and standardized large GHG networks to improve interoperability, reproducibility, and areal coverage of carbon flux supporting climate change research and GHG trading markets

Abstract:

Eddy covariance (EC) methodology to determine Net Ecosystem Exchange is well developed and has been deployed worldwide, however, cost and operation of typical EC research towers is high, limiting field deployments to ~600 towers worldwide constructed over ~20 years. Deployment of EC observation platforms in the field is also often difficult and requires either a walk-up or ladder structure to ascend and place and maintain instrumentation on a tower. Described here is a low cost, self-contained single steel pole EC architecture with a mobile ascending/descending instrument ring mount system that is safe to deploy and operate compared to typical research towers. Eddy Covariance as a Service (ECaaS) commercializes EC research tower components and functions for networks of EC observation platforms with a goal of ~2,000+ towers worldwide within five years. The goal of ECaaS is to catalyze private sector participation in FLUXNET or other entity at the regional and global scale employing coordinated and standardized participation across diverse financial institutions, governments and research entities. ECaaS consists of low-cost turn-key fully pre-assembled EC observation platforms that can be rapidly shipped and deployed (set-up and removal) in the field with a System of Systems architecture (SoS). ECaaS SoS proposes operational details of the Papale 2020* envisioned new FLUXNET structure but with a single data format and a single access interface. The SoS automates data telemetry, standardized data analysis, third party verification and carbon product creation and verification across large landscapes (e.g., 1 million+ hectares) vastly improving the scale of eddy covariance observation networks. Protocols for analysis of eddy covariance CO₂ data, for example, could be standardized based on recommendations of researchers and ECaaS field practitioners. Field deployment requirements depend on height; extensions of up to 100 meters are easily mounted in the field. Fixed configuration open-path CO₂ and CH₄ analyzers and sonic anemometer instruments are mounted with a single fixture, taking advantage of off-the-shelf EC components; closed path GHG analyzers and pump requirements can be accommodated housed in the pole structure base station. Air samples can be taken at variable heights; solar panels and/or powered configurations are standard features. The reduced cost and deployment resources allow a single site dual-tower approach in selected locations to test for CO₂ flux reproducibility and improved interoperability. The features of the SoS are described including handling of GHG flux measurements to creation of GHG products suitable for carbon trading worldwide. The SoS is applicable to implementation of the Paris Agreement and projects organized around the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation policy platform.

*Papale, D.: Ideas and perspectives: enhancing the impact of the FLUXNET network of eddy covariance sites, Biogeosciences Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-2020-211, in review, 2020.