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How to measure, report and verify soil carbon change to realize the potential of soil carbon sequestration for atmospheric greenhouse gas removal
Author(s) -
Smith Pete,
Soussana JeanFrancois,
Angers Denis,
Schipper Louis,
Chenu Claire,
Rasse Daniel P.,
Batjes Niels H.,
Egmond Fenny,
McNeill Stephen,
Kuhnert Matthias,
AriasNavarro Cristina,
Olesen Jorgen E.,
Chirinda Ngonidzashe,
Fornara Dario,
Wollenberg Eva,
ÁlvaroFuentes Jorge,
SanzCobena Alberto,
Klumpp Katja
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
global change biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.146
H-Index - 255
eISSN - 1365-2486
pISSN - 1354-1013
DOI - 10.1111/gcb.14815
Subject(s) - greenhouse gas , soil carbon , climate change , environmental science , climate change mitigation , environmental resource management , soil water , carbon sequestration , land use, land use change and forestry , benchmark (surveying) , scale (ratio) , food security , global change , environmental economics , computer science , land use , engineering , soil science , civil engineering , agriculture , geography , ecology , cartography , geodesy , carbon dioxide , biology , economics , archaeology
There is growing international interest in better managing soils to increase soil organic carbon (SOC) content to contribute to climate change mitigation, to enhance resilience to climate change and to underpin food security, through initiatives such as international ‘4p1000’ initiative and the FAO's Global assessment of SOC sequestration potential (GSOCseq) programme. Since SOC content of soils cannot be easily measured, a key barrier to implementing programmes to increase SOC at large scale, is the need for credible and reliable measurement/monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) platforms, both for national reporting and for emissions trading. Without such platforms, investments could be considered risky. In this paper, we review methods and challenges of measuring SOC change directly in soils, before examining some recent novel developments that show promise for quantifying SOC. We describe how repeat soil surveys are used to estimate changes in SOC over time, and how long‐term experiments and space‐for‐time substitution sites can serve as sources of knowledge and can be used to test models, and as potential benchmark sites in global frameworks to estimate SOC change. We briefly consider models that can be used to simulate and project change in SOC and examine the MRV platforms for SOC change already in use in various countries/regions. In the final section, we bring together the various components described in this review, to describe a new vision for a global framework for MRV of SOC change, to support national and international initiatives seeking to effect change in the way we manage our soils.