Contact
Professor Jon-Petter Gustavsson
Department of Soil and Environment
jon-petter.gustafsson@slu.se, 018-671284
SLU news
Do a PhD with us on soil science with a focus on chemistry
Published: 01 December 2017
Phosphorus is an important nutrient in forests, even though nitrogen is generally the most limiting nutrient. Currently however, a high atmospheric nitrogen deposition constantly adds nitrogen to the forest.
At the same time, modern forestry may cause slow depletion of available soil phosphorus, especially when using forest residues for, for example, biofuel production. Phosphorus can be returned to the soil through the use of biofuel ash. In this project we will investigate the distribution of different species of phosphorus in forests, and investigate how soil phosphorus responds to the impact of whole-tree harvesting, ash fertilization, and climate change. A geochemical model is also developed to describe how the availability and supply of phosphorus change over time.
The PhD student will be based at the Department of Soil and Environment, in the Soil Chemistry research group, but will also collaborate with other researchers and with representatives from the forestry sector. Field and laboratory work (e.g. extractions and XANES spectroscopy), as well as geochemical modelling, are included in the project. The project is a collaborative effort between SLU and IVL (Swedish Environmental Research Institute).