Modeling Soil Organic Carbon Dynamics in the Horizon Europe LILAS4SOILS Living Lab

Armosys is a partner in the European-funded project LILAS4SOILS. We are a transversal partner leading the modelling of future trends of carbon sequestrations.

About the Project

LILAS4SOILS addresses the challenging climate situation that affects southern European agricultural soils, particularly in the rapidly warming Mediterranean region. The project focuses on implementing Carbon Farming Practices (CFPs) to promote climate adaptation and mitigation.

Over five years, LILAS4SOILS will develop five Living Labs (LLs) across six countries, involving 24 expert partners, more than 80 farmers and 125 stakeholders. The project will test CFPs on 85-100 demo-sites in diverse farming systems and pedoclimatic zones, focusing on: 1) peatland management, 2) agroforestry, 3) maintaining and enhancing soil organic carbon (SOC), 4) livestock and manure management, and 5) nutrient, pesticides and fertilizers management.

Through collaboration with farmers, researchers, industry and local authorities, LILAS4SOILS aims to accelerate the transition to healthy soils and contribute to standardized Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) frameworks for future carbon markets.

‍Funded by the European Union (Grant no. 101157414), EU Mission Soils.

Role and Activities of Armosys within the project

Within the project, Armosys will contribute to the assessment of Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) dynamics and the impacts of Carbon Farming Practices (CFPs) through modeling activities, data integration, and methodological support across the Living Labs (LLs).

The core activity of Armosys consists of running a large set of simulations using the ARMOSA model, explicitly representing both particulate organic matter (POM) and mineral-associated organic matter (MAOM). In total, Armosys will perform approximately 200 simulations, corresponding to 100 sites simulated under two management conditions: the baseline and the carbon-enhancing practice.

A key concept in this work is the baseline, which represents the management practices applied before the introduction of CFPs. The baseline is not a physical plot but a reference management scenario that reflects historical or conventional practices at each Living Lab. It provides the benchmark against which changes in SOC stocks and carbon sequestration potential are evaluated.

In a limited number of selected demo sites within each Living Lab, control plots will be maintained under baseline management. These plots allow a direct comparison between baseline and CFP management and play an important role in supporting the calibration and validation of the ARMOSA model, particularly for the simulation of SOC pools (POM and MAOM).

For the majority of demo sites where control plots are not available, Armosys will reconstruct and simulate the baseline management using information provided by partners. Depending on data availability, this will be done either through a detailed description of past management practices (e.g. crops, yields, tillage, fertilization, residues) or through a simplified characterization complemented by values from the scientific literature.

Armosys will also collaborate with UNICATT  and Food4Sustainability CoLAB in the definition and implementation of a data assimilation pipeline, integrating remote sensing products into the ARMOSA modeling framework.