Visit to the Faidherbia-Flux site in Senegal.

Visit to the Faidherbia-Flux site in Senegal.

FairCarboN visited the Faidherbia-Flux site in Senegal between 11 and 16 March.

Olivier Roupsard and Frédéric Do showed Patricia Garnier, FairCarboN's co-director, around the Faiderbia Flux site in the Niakhar agro-sylvo-pastoral reserve from 11 to 16 March 2024. It is one of the sites for FairCarboN's SLAM-B and RIFT projects. It is coordinated by Olivier Roupsard (CIRAD) for the RIFT project. Frédéric Do and Dominique Masse from the IRD are also involved in the SLAM-B project. This site is typical of agriculture in this region. It is an agroforestry where trees, acacias (Faidherbia Albida), crops such as millet and groundnuts and livestock (mainly goats) coexist. The acacias act as fertility islands. They are capable of recovering carbon and nitrogen from the atmosphere, as well as groundwater. The question for the researchers is how these trees return all these elements to the crops around them. The site is very well equipped with flow towers, sensors in the soil and on the trees, a meteorological station, etc. All of this makes it possible to measure the flow of nutrients into the soil. All this enables us to measure water and gas flows in particular. All this data helps us to better understand the interactions between the elements of the ecosystem and to model them.