Cervoland

The Landes forest is the largest cultivated and managed forest in Europe; it is
coniferous, mono-specific and in one piece. The majority species, nearly 85%, is the maritime pine (Pinus pinaster), which covers more than one million hectares in Aquitaine. This cultivated forest massively emits Volatile Organic Compounds of biotic origin (VOCs) into the atmosphere. VOC emissions interact with atmospheric oxidants to modify the oxidants to modify the oxidising capacity of the atmosphere and contribute to the formation of secondary organic aerosols (SOAs).

The CERVOLAND project proposes to study the emissions of VOCs and their atmospheric reactivity in a forestry environment of interest: the maritime pine forest of the Landes located in southwestern France.
The CERVOLAND project is therefore fully in line with recent societal concerns regarding the link between the environment and the concerns about the link between agricultural activities and air quality. Although it is “upstream” of the development of decision-making tools intended for economic and political actors, CERVOLAND is strongly anchored in the Aquitaine region and AIRAQ (Association Agréée pour la Surveillance de la Qualité de l’Air en Aquitaine) has already been involved in the construction and implementation of this project.
The CERVOLAND project aims to produce new knowledge on emissions from maritime pine in the Landes forest, focusing on the currently poorly documented VOCBs such as sesquiterpenes or oxygenated mono-terpenes and on the atmospheric reactivity of these emissions, taking into account the recent work that underlines their impact on air quality.

CERVOLAND is a project built around 4 different tasks (excluding Task 1 – Coordination) based on the
(i) field studies, consisting of a pre-campaign for the screening of the VOCs of interest and a campaign of measurements of emission flows and concentrations (ii) chamber reactivity studies, specifically developed in this project and deployed in-situ in the forest, and (iii) laboratory reactivity, both in a quasi-static reactor and in a (iii) laboratory reactivity, both in a quasi-static reactor, to isolate reactions at the elemental level, and in an atmospheric simulation chamber, in order to compare the kinetic and mechanistic results obtained as closely as possible to the reality in the field. The resolutely multidisciplinary consortium brings together the recognised expertise of 3 laboratories for the study of
emissions of biotic origin and the chemical reactivity of VOCs in the atmosphere.
The combination of these experimental approaches ensures that the CERVOLAND project will
produce new knowledge on the emissions of VOCs from maritime pine and their reactivity
reactivity, to be directly implemented in emission and chemistry-transport models, with a view to
models, with a view to taking better account of emissions from the forest in the assessment of
in air quality assessment.