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Kentucky State University’s College of Agriculture, Food Science and Sustainable Systems established Eddy Covariance instrumentation at the Research and Demonstration Farm on Dec. 4, 2013.

The Eddy Covariance method has gained increased popularity in micrometeorology studies, especially in carbon flux research. KSU has become a leader in establishing this instrumentation in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

Dr. Buddhi R. Gyawali, assistant professor and coordinator of the geospatial application program, says the instrumentation will benefit the state by providing open-access, uniformed, real-time microclimate data for environmental and weather monitoring and for long-term climate studies and other ecosystems research in central Kentucky.

Dr. Teferi Tsegaye, dean of the College of Agriculture, Food Science and Sustainable Systems, says such instrumentation strengthens the institutional capacity of the university and generates new opportunities for KSU’s research scientists to pursue cutting-edge agricultural, environmental, climate and ecological research.

Tsegaye says the project will be expanded in the next few months and the Eddy Flux instruments will be mounted on an 80-foot-tall, self-supporting tower at KSU’s Environmental Education and Research Center in Henry County. The university will then be able to conduct comparative research between agricultural and forest ecosystems to measure the exchange of energy, mass and water between the plant canopy and the atmosphere, using Eddy Flux data from the Research Farm and the Environmental Education Research Center.