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Soil‐Specific Inventories of Landscape Carbon and Nitrogen Stocks under No‐till and Native Vegetation to Estimate Carbon Offset in a Subtropical Ecosystem
Author(s) -
Moraes Sá João Carlos,
Bürkner dos Santos Josiane,
Lal Rattan,
Moraes Anibal,
Tivet Florent,
Machado Sá Marcia Freire,
Briedis Clever,
Oliveira Ferreira Ademir,
Eurich Guilherme,
Farias Anderson,
Friedrich Theodor
Publication year - 2013
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/sssaj2013.01.0007
Subject(s) - environmental science , soil carbon , ecosystem , subtropics , carbon fibers , vegetation (pathology) , nitrogen , offset (computer science) , carbon stock , ecology , agroforestry , soil science , soil water , climate change , chemistry , biology , medicine , materials science , organic chemistry , pathology , composite number , computer science , composite material , programming language
Inventories of C and N footprints on a landscape scale are essential tools for estimating C offsets from agricultural emissions. Therefore, the aims of this study conducted in the subtropical humid ecosystem in southern Brazil were to: (i) conduct a soil‐specific inventory of landscape soil C and N stocks with reference to soil order, soil texture, and land use/management type; (ii) estimate accretion rates for soil organic C (SOC) and total N (TN) for areas managed under no‐till (NT) practices management with reference to native vegetation (NV) based on this inventory; (iii) generate a map of C stocks for each land use system; and (iv) calculate estimated C offset for the region through the use of NT compared to conventional tillage (CT). Soil samples were collected at 324 points to a 1‐m depth from the entire region. Soil texture and duration of NT had a strong influence on C and N stocks. The average soil C stock across all types of soils for depths of 0–40 and 40–100 cm was 57.0 and 43.0%, respectively. The extrapolation of C stored in the 0‐ to 40‐cm depth based on the NT management for 11 and 20 yr for 1.52 million hectare (Mha) was 9.08 ± 0.62 Tg (1 Tg = 10 12 g) representing 11.9% of the C stored in all soil orders. The long‐term of C sink capacity by conversion of arable land from CT to NT in this region is 33.2 Tg of CO 2 , with the C offset of 22.5% of all anthropogenic emissions.