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Brazil's Soil Carbon Stocks
Author(s) -
Bernoux Martial,
Conceição Santana Carvalho Maria,
Volkoff Boris,
Cerri Carlos Clemente
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
soil science society of america journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.836
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1435-0661
pISSN - 0361-5995
DOI - 10.2136/sssaj2002.8880
Subject(s) - vegetation (pathology) , soil carbon , environmental science , soil science , soil map , carbon stock , forestry , hydrology (agriculture) , soil water , geography , geology , climate change , ecology , biology , medicine , geotechnical engineering , pathology
Soil organic carbon (C) stocks to a depth of 30 cm were estimated for Brazil on the basis of a map of different soil‐vegetation associations (SVA) combined with results from a soil database. The SVA map was derived by intersection of soil and vegetation maps. The original soil and vegetation classification were simplified to six soil and 15 vegetation categories. The SVA map comprised 21 111 map units (MU) that were spread into 75 different SVA categories. Mean representative C stocks (RCS) of the SVA categories ranged from 1.51 to 41.78 kg C m −2 More than three fourth of all SVA areas had an associated RCS varying between 3 and 6 kg C m −2 Because these data represent sites with native vegetation in the absence of significant disturbances, they represent a valuable baseline for evaluating the effect of land‐use change on soil C stocks for Brazil. In total, about 36.4 ± 3.4 Pg C was stored in the 0‐ to 30‐cm soil layer.