DAMOCO - Closing the DAta gap to develop Land Surface MOdels for COngo Basin forests

The DAMOCO project is funded under the second phase of the BRAIN-be 2.0 (Belgian Research Action through Interdisciplinary Networks) program (2018-2023) of BELSPO (CONTRACT NR B2/223/P1/DAMOCO). This is a consortium project between UGent (main PI Hans Verbeeck, co-PI’s Pascal Boeckx and Marijn Bauters), the Africamuseum (co-PI’s Wannes Hubau and Hans Beeckman), ULiège (co-PI Adeline Fayolle) UNIKIS (co-PI’s Jean-Remy Makana and Corneille Ewango) and INERA (co-PI’s Bhély Angoboy and John Tshibamba).

The general ambition of the DAMOCO project is to contribute to closing the Congo Basin forest data gap and improve Land Surface Models to capture its biodiversity and carbon dynamics. To reach this ambition, we will first collect new data on permanent forest inventory plots scattered across the Congo basin. The data will span multiple time scales by combining four different methodological approaches: (i) eddy-covariance data from CongoFlux (an ICOS ESFRI station) will provide (sub-)daily measurements of carbon and water fluxes; (ii) repeated tree measurements will reveal decadal-scale changes in the carbon balance, (iii) measuring a wide array of tree traits on the plots will allow in-depth analysis of decadal-scale changes in taxonomic and functional composition, and (iv) identification of radiocarbon dated fossil charcoal will reveal century-scale and millennial-scale changes in biodiversity. By themselves, those data will shed light on the short- and long-term resilience of critical Congo Basin forest ecosystem functions. Secondly, we will combine all collected data to parameterize and validate the Ecosystem Demography model (ED2) for the Congo Basin forest. Finally, we will use the newly parameterized and validated model to simulate future dynamics of Congo Basin biodiversity and carbon balance under different emission scenarios.

The project will have major scientific impact because the data will be made available through well-known and widely used scientific repositories, which all struggle with a common data gap in the Congo Basin. The project will contribute to capacity building by coaching Congolese students to become future science leaders. Finally, at the end of this project the Democratic Republic of Congo will have refined information on its past, present and future forest ecosystem and climate services, which will foster major policy impact at the national and international level.