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Field | Value |
Title | Quantifying carbon for agricultural soil management: from the current status toward a global soil information system |
Names |
Paustian, K.
Collier, S. Baldock, J. Burgess, R. Creque, J. DeLonge, M. Dungait, J. Ellert, B. Frank, S. Goddard, T. Govaerts, B. Grundy, M. Henning, M. Izaurralde, R.C. Madaras, M. McConkey, B. Porzig, E. Rice, C. Searle, R. Seavy, N. Skalsky, R. Mulhern, W. Jahn, M. |
Date Issued | 2019 (iso8601) |
Abstract | The importance of building/maintaining soil carbon, for soil health and CO2 mitigation, is of increasing interest to a wide audience, including policymakers, NGOs and land managers. Integral to any approaches to promote carbon sequestering practices in managed soils are reliable, accurate and cost-effective means to quantify soil C stock changes and forecast soil C responses to different management, climate and edaphic conditions. While technology to accurately measure soil C concentrations and stocks has been in use for decades, many challenges to routine, cost-effective soil C quantification remain, including large spatial variability, low signal-to-noise and often high cost and standardization issues for direct measurement with destructive sampling. Models, empirical and process-based, may provide a cost-effective and practical means for soil C quantification to support C sequestration policies. Examples are described of how soil science and soil C quantification methods are being used to support domestic climate change policies to promote soil C sequestration on agricultural lands (cropland and grazing land) at national and provincial levels in Australia and Canada. Finally, a quantification system is outlined – consisting of well-integrated datamodel frameworks, supported by expanded measurement and monitoring networks, remote sensing and crowd-sourcing of management activity data – that could comprise the core of a new global soil information system. |
Genre | Article |
Access Condition | Open Access |
Identifier | 1758-3004 (Print) |