The Forest-Atmosphere Carbon Transfer and Storage (FACTS-I) facility is located
in the Blackwood Division of the Duke Forest. It consists of four free-air CO2 enrichment
(FACE) plots that provide elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration
and four plots that provide ambient CO2 control.
The system has been in operation since June, 1994 in the prototype plot,
and since August, 1996 in the three additional plots.
The prototype plot and its reference were halved with a barrier
inserted in the soil in 1998 to conduct, together with five additional plot pairs,
CO2 X soil nutrient enrichment experiments. The rest of the plots were partitioned
in early 2005 and incorporated into the CO2 X nutrient experiment.
To increase statistical power, four additional ambient plots were established in January, 2005, halved, and one half of each fertilized.
The FACE project entered its final stage on October 31st, 2010, when the CO2 enrichment was switched off and the final harvest began.
The official blocking of the eight original plots is as follows: 1-2, 3-5, 4-6, 7-8. A point of caution: blocking assumes that there is uniformity within blocks. This isn't so - so the best way to analyze is using something (N min, NPP) as covariate in ANOVA.
Core funding for the Duke Forest FACE Facility has been provided by the Office of Science (BER), U.S. Department of Energy.
If you are interested in conducting research at the site or using our data, please contact Ram Oren. All site users must be familiar with the Site Protocol.
Blackwood Division
FACE site description
CO2 enrichment protocol
Fertilization
Final Harvest
 An aerial view of the FACTS-I site. The FACE rings are marked with circles. The squares indicate the location of the satellite fertilization study plots. Colors denote treatment. Click image to enlarge.
Monthly values for some environmental variables at the FACTS-I site during 1997 - 2000. Click image to enlarge. |
