Dr. Marijn Van de Broek

Research interests

As a geographer, I have a great interest in the interaction between humans and the Earth system. Specifically, my main research interests are related to soil biogeochemistry, how this is influenced by anthropogenic activities such as soil managements and climate change, and the representation of these processes in numerical models.
I am currently working in the Sustainable Agroecosystems group as a SNSF fellow on an Ambizione project, with the aim to assess the effects of agricultural nutrient management and reforestation on the soil microbiome and carbon and nitrogen cycling at the soil profile scale. I will use this knowledge to improve the representation of the soil microbiome in a mechanistic soil organic matter model, to improve predictions of how the soil microbiome and consequently carbon and nitrogen cycling react to anthropogenic perturbations. Furthermore, I am participating in multiple projects related to the numerical simulation of carbon and nitrogen cycles in temperate agricultural soils, tropical mangroves and arctic environments.
Before embarking on this new research project, I completed my PhD at the University of Leuven (Belgium), which addressed organic carbon dynamics in tidal marshes and reclaimed tidal wetlands in Belgium and The Netherlands, after having worked as a soil erosion modeler at the University of Leuven.

Education

2014 – 2018: PhD in Science, option Geography (KU Leuven, Belgium)

2010 – 2012: Master of Science in Geography, option Terrestrial Ecosystems and Global Change (KU Leuven, Belgium)

2007 – 2010: Bachelor in Geography (KU Leuven, Belgium)

Selected publications

Van de Broek, M., Henriksen, C.B., Ghaley, B.B., Lugato, E., Kuzmanovski, V., Trajanov, A., Debeljak, M., Sandén, T., Spiegel, H., Decock, C., Creamer, R., Six, J., 2019. Assessing the Climate Regulation Potential of Agricultural Soils Using a Decision Support Tool Adapted to Stakeholders’ Needs and Possibilities. Front. Environ. Sci. 7, 131. external page https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2019.00131

Van de Broek, M., Ghiasi, S., Decock, C., Hund, A., Abiven, S., Friedli, C., Werner, R.A., Six, J., 2020. The soil organic carbon stabilization potential of old and new wheat cultivars: a 13CO2-labeling study. Biogeosciences 17, 2971–2986. external page https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-2971-2020

Van de Broek M., Vandendriessche C., Poppelmonde D., Merckx R., Temmerman S., Govers G., 2018, Long-term organic carbon sequestration in tidal marsh sediments is dominated by old-aged allochthonous inputs in a macrotidal estuary Global Change Biology, external page doi: 10.1111/gcb.14089.