Benchmarking soil organic carbon (SOC) concentration provides more robust soil health assessment than the SOC/clay ratio at European scale.

Autor: Feeney CJ; UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Environment Centre Wales, Deiniol Road, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2UW, UK. Electronic address: chrfee@ceh.ac.uk., Bentley L; UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Environment Centre Wales, Deiniol Road, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2UW, UK., De Rosa D; School of Agriculture, Forestry, Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Basilicata, 85100 Potenza, Italy., Panagos P; European Commission - Joint Research Centre, Via Enrico Fermi, 2749, 21027 Ispra, VA, Italy., Emmett BA; UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Environment Centre Wales, Deiniol Road, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2UW, UK., Thomas A; UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Environment Centre Wales, Deiniol Road, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2UW, UK., Robinson DA; UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Environment Centre Wales, Deiniol Road, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2UW, UK.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: The Science of the total environment [Sci Total Environ] 2024 Nov 15; Vol. 951, pp. 175642. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Aug 18.
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175642
Abstrakt: Increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) confers benefits to soil health, biodiversity, underpins carbon sequestration and ameliorates land degradation. One recommendation is to increase SOC such that the SOC to clay ratio (SOC/clay) exceeds 1/13, yet normalising SOC levels based on clay alone gives misleading indications of soil structure and the potential to store additional carbon. Building on work by Poeplau & Don (2023) to benchmark observed against predicted SOC, we advance an alternative indicator: the ratio between observed and "typical" SOC (O/T SOC) for pan-European application. Here, "typical" SOC is the average concentration in different pedo-climate zones, PCZs (which, unlike existing SOC indicators, incorporate land cover and climate, alongside soil texture) across Europe, determined from mineral (<20 % organic matter) topsoils (0-20 cm) sampled during 2009-2018 in LUCAS, Europe's largest soil monitoring scheme (n = 19,855). Regression tree modelling derived 12 PCZs, with typical SOC values ranging 5.99-39.65 g kg -1 . New index classes for comparison with SOC/clay grades were established from the quartiles of each PCZ's O/T SOC distribution; these were termed: "Low" (below the 25th percentile), "Intermediate" (between the 25th and 50th percentiles), "High" (between the 50th and 75th percentiles), and "Very high" (above the 75th percentile). Compared with SOC/clay, O/T SOC was less sensitive to clay content, land cover, and climate, less geographically skewed, and better reflected differences in soil porosity and SOC stock, supporting 2 EU Soil Health Mission objectives (consolidating SOC stocks; improving soil structure for crops and biota). These patterns held for 2 independent datasets, and O/T SOC grades were sensitive enough to reflect land management differences across several long-term field experiments. O/T SOC used in conjunction with several other physical, chemical and biological soil health indicators can help support the EU Soil Monitoring Law and achieve several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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