Integrated management of a Swiss cropland is not sufficient to preserve its soil carbon pool in the long term

Emmel, Carmen; Winkler, Annina; Hörtnagl, Lukas; Revill, Andrew; Ammann, Christof; D'Odorico, Petra; Buchmann, Nina; Eugster, Werner

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5377-2018

Articles | Volume 15, issue 17

Biogeosciences, 15, 5377–5393, 2018

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5377-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Biogeosciences, 15, 5377–5393, 2018

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-5377-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 17

Research article 06 Sep 2018

Research article | 06 Sep 2018

Integrated management of a Swiss cropland is not sufficient to preserve its soil carbon pool in the long term

Carmen Emmel et al.

Data sets

Data to Journal Article "Integrated management of a Swiss cropland is not sufficient to preserve its soil carbon pool in the long-term" Carmen Emmel, Annina Winkler, Lukas Hörtnagl, Andrew Revill, Christof Ammann, Petra D’Odorico, Nina Buchmann, and Werner Eugster https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000260058.

Short summary

It is of great interest to know whether croplands act as a net source or sink of atmospheric CO₂ and if soil carbon (C) stocks are preserved over long timescales due to the role of C in soil fertility. For a cropland in Switzerland it was found that managing the field under the Swiss framework of the Proof of Ecological Performance (PEP) resulted in soil C losses of 18.0 %. Additional efforts are needed to bring Swiss management practices closer to the goal of preserving soil C in the long term.