Kyle S Hemes

I am interested in the role of agricultural land management in climate change mitigation, specifically how agricultural land can be managed or restored for climate benefit.

Previous work (Hemes et al., 2019 Agriculture and Forest Meteorology) synthesized continuous records of CO2 and CH4 flux data, as well as harvest records, from a network of eddy covariance towers in the agricultural Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. We computed multiyear carbon and greenhouse gas budgets at Alfalfa, Corn, Rice, and Pasture sites with drained, degraded peat soils. We also integrated nitrous oxide chamber measurements, to understand the contribution of this potent greenhouse gas

Agricultural sites were consistently neutral to net carbon sources, losing carbon to the atmosphere, mostly in the form of heterotrophic (soil) CO2 respiration and harvested biomass. This net loss of carbon from the landscape is consistent with observations of significant subsidence of agricultural lands in the Delta, and helps constrain the potential benefit of peatland restoration activities.