SERVICO2

European project investigating how headwater catchments regulate greenhouse gases under climate change, nutrient deposition, and land-use pressure. B2SLab designs and deploys the multi-sensor monitoring nodes.

Keywords

greenhouse gases, headwater catchments, CO2, methane, N2O, low-cost sensors, climate change, Water4All, European, UPC, Jordi Fonollosa, bioengineering

Full title	Impacts of global change on the regulation of greenhouse gases in headwaters
Status	Active · started 2025
Duration	3 years
Call	Water4All 2023 Joint Transnational Call
Coordinator	CEAB-CSIC, Blanes, Spain
B2SLab PI	Jordi Fonollosa
Website	servico2.org

The scientific challenge

Small streams matter more than their size suggests. Headwater catchments — the upper reaches of river networks that collect water draining from soils, forests, and wetlands — play a disproportionately large role in the global carbon cycle. They act as conduits and reactors: groundwater and soil water enriched with dissolved CO₂, methane (CH₄), and nitrous oxide (N₂O) enter these streams and are released to the atmosphere, making headwaters significant, and still poorly quantified, sources of greenhouse gases.

Three global change drivers are reshaping how headwaters perform this function:

• Climate change — altered temperature and precipitation regimes change microbial activity, water residence times, and organic matter decomposition in soils and sediments.
• Atmospheric nutrient deposition — nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) deposited from the atmosphere fertilise catchment soils, altering the biogeochemical processes that produce and consume greenhouse gases.
• Land use — forest management, agriculture, and urbanisation change the hydrological and biogeochemical character of the landscape the stream drains.

How do climate change, atmospheric nutrient deposition, and land use affect the capacity of headwaters to regulate greenhouse gases? The central question of SERVICO2.

Despite their importance, headwater greenhouse gas fluxes remain poorly represented in global and regional carbon budgets. Measurement is technically demanding — small streams are spatially heterogeneous, temporally variable, and logistically difficult to instrument at the resolution needed to capture short-term dynamics. SERVICO2 addresses this directly, combining long-term observational data from established monitoring networks with new low-cost sensor technology to bridge the gap between rare intensive measurements and the high-frequency, multi-site coverage that regional carbon accounting requires.

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Objectives

Note

SERVICO2 aims to:

1. Quantify greenhouse gas fluxes (CO₂, CH₄, N₂O) from headwater catchments across a latitudinal gradient spanning boreal, temperate, and Mediterranean climates.
2. Attribute observed flux variability to the three global change drivers — climate, nutrient deposition, and land use — using long-term datasets from established European monitoring networks.
3. Model and predict how catchment-scale carbon dynamics will shift under future scenarios of environmental change.
4. Deploy a new generation of low-cost, multi-sensor monitoring infrastructure capable of high-frequency, continuous measurement across all relevant landscape units (streams, riparian zones, catchment soils).
5. Value the ecosystem service of greenhouse gas regulation using socio-ecological frameworks, providing evidence for environmental management and climate policy.

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B2SLab’s contribution: sensor technology

The UPC team, led by Jordi Fonollosa, is responsible for the design, development, and deployment of the multi-sensor monitoring nodes that form the measurement backbone of SERVICO2 across all field sites.

This role draws directly on B2SLab’s decade-long expertise in gas sensor arrays, signal processing, and low-cost environmental instrumentation — the same line of work that has produced CO₂ sensor placement guidelines for schools, wearable air quality monitors for asthma patients, and gas-sensor-based home monitoring for elderly individuals.

Tip

UPC sensor expertise in SERVICO2

• Gas sensor selection and integration: identifying the optimal sensor combinations for CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, and co-variables (temperature, humidity, volatile organic compounds) in outdoor riparian environments.
• Signal data processing: handling baseline drift, cross-sensitivity between gases, temperature compensation, and the multivariate calibration required to extract reliable concentration estimates from low-cost sensors.
• Multivariate predictive models: applying machine learning to multi-sensor data to improve precision and detect anomalies or calibration drift in field conditions.
• Hardware development: designing rugged, low-power sensor nodes suitable for remote deployment with minimal maintenance, capable of operating through full seasonal cycles.

Target technology readiness level: TRL 5–7 (technology validated in relevant environment → system prototype demonstrated).

Kick-off meeting — Blanes, November 2025

The consortium held its kick-off meeting on 20–21 November 2025 in Blanes, hosted by the coordinating partner CEAB-CSIC. The UPC team presented the first prototype sensor node to the consortium — the first tangible hardware output of the project.

The second day of the kick-off included a field visit to gain direct insight into the logistical, environmental, and operational constraints of the deployment sites — terrain, access routes, hydrology, and weather exposure — informing the final hardware design and deployment planning.

First field deployment — Furiosos catchment, March 2026

In March 2026, the UPC team completed the first field deployment of the sensor node in the Furiosos catchment in Catalunya — the Spanish study site for the project. This marks the transition from prototype to operational field infrastructure.

Continuous, high-resolution measurements are now underway. Data from this deployment will feed into the broader consortium analysis and help calibrate the network-wide measurement framework ahead of deployments at all partner sites.

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Study sites across Europe

SERVICO2 operates across a latitudinal gradient of European headwater catchments, spanning contrasting climate zones and long-term monitoring histories:

Site	Country	Partner	Ecosystem type
Furiosos catchment	Spain	UPC / CEAB-CSIC	Mediterranean forest
Lysina catchment (GEOMON)	Czech Republic	CGS	Temperate spruce forest
Study catchments	Italy	UniPd	Temperate mountain rivers
Northern Sweden sites	Sweden	Umeå University	Boreal/subarctic
Värriö catchment	Finland	UEF	Boreal/subarctic

Many of these sites are embedded in long-term monitoring networks (LTER-Europe, ICP Waters, ILTER, GEOMON), providing decades of hydrological and biogeochemical reference data against which new high-frequency sensor measurements can be interpreted.

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Consortium

CEAB-CSIC (Spain) — Coordinator

UPC (Spain) — Sensor technology

University of Eastern Finland

Umeå University (Sweden)

University of Padova (Italy)

Czech Geological Survey

Partner	Country	PI	Key expertise
CEAB-CSIC (coordinator)	Spain	Lluís Camarero	Continental water and catchment biogeochemistry; carbon cycle; LTER-Spain
UPC / B2SLab	Spain	Jordi Fonollosa	Gas sensor arrays; signal processing; low-cost environmental monitoring
University of Eastern Finland (UEF)	Finland	Jukka Pumpanen	Greenhouse gas flux measurements; BVOC fluxes; ecosystem service valuation
Umeå University (CIRC)	Sweden	Jan Karlsson	Climate change impacts on high-latitude aquatic biogeochemistry
University of Padova (UniPd)	Italy	Gianluca Botter	CO₂ river-to-atmosphere flux; water cycle modelling; river metabolism
Czech Geological Survey (CGS)	Czech Republic	Pavel Krám	GEOMON network; 34+ years biogeochemical budgets at Lysina catchment

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Funding

SERVICO2 is funded through the Water4All 2023 Joint Transnational Call — a coordinated European funding mechanism under the EU Water4All Partnership — with co-funding from national research agencies in each partner country:

Country	Agency
Spain	Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI)
Finland	Research Council of Finland (RCF)
Sweden	Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (Formas)
Italy	Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR)
Czech Republic	Czech Technology Agency (TACR)

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Latest news

• March 2026 — First sensor deployment at Furiosos catchment, Catalunya — the SERVICO2 field measurement network is operational.
• November 2025 — SERVICO2 kick-off meeting, Blanes — consortium meets in person; UPC presents first sensor prototype; field site visited.

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Related B2SLab work

The sensor capabilities developed for SERVICO2 draw on a sustained programme of environmental monitoring research at B2SLab:

• CO₂ sensors in classrooms — spatial discrepancies exceeding 100 ppm from sensor placement alone. Indoor Air, 2025
• Wearable air quality for asthma — personal exposure monitoring over 6 months in 13 patients. Environment International, 2026
• Electronic nose signal processing — multivariate preprocessing for MCC-IMS instrument-based e-noses. Sensors, 2025
• Nepal indoor air quality — award-winning chimney stove intervention reducing indoor PM by 90%. UPC Social Commitment Prize 2025