Management induced changes of soil organic carbon on global croplands
- 1Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association, P.O. Box 60 12 03, 14412 Potsdam, Germany
- 2Institute of Biological & Environmental Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK
- 3Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Department of Agricultural Economics, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
- 1Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Member of the Leibniz Association, P.O. Box 60 12 03, 14412 Potsdam, Germany
- 2Institute of Biological & Environmental Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK
- 3Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Department of Agricultural Economics, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany
Abstract. Soil organic carbon (SOC) is one of the largest terrestrial carbon stocks on Earth. The first meter of the Earths soils profile stores three times as much carbon as the vegetation and twice the amount of C in the atmosphere. SOC has been depleted by anthropogenic land cover change and agricultural management. However, the latter has so far not been well represented in global carbon stock assessments. While SOC models often simulate detailed biochemical processes that lead to the accumulation and decay of SOC, the management decisions driving these biophysical processes are still little investigated at the global scale. Here we develop a spatial explicit data set for agricultural management on cropland, considering crop production levels, residue returning rates, manure application, and the adoption of irrigation and tillage practices. We combine it with the IPCC Tier 2 steady-state soil model to create a half-degree resolution data set of SOC stocks and SOC stock changes for the first 30 cm of mineral soils. We estimate that due to arable farming, soils have lost around 26 GtC relative to a counterfactual natural state in 1975. Yet, within the period 1975–2010 this SOC debt has been decreasing again by a net quantity of 4 Gt SOC, which can be mainly traced back to an increased input of C in crop residues due to higher crop productivity. We also find that SOC is very sensitive to management decisions such as residue returning indicating the necessity to incorporate better management data in soil model simulations.
Kristine Karstens et al.


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RC1: 'review of BG-2020-468', Jonathan Sanderman, 10 Jan 2021
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Kristine Karstens, 26 Jan 2021
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AC3: 'Full reply on RC1', Kristine Karstens, 08 Jun 2021
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Kristine Karstens, 26 Jan 2021
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RC2: 'Referee Comments', Anonymous Referee #2, 16 Mar 2021
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AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Kristine Karstens, 08 Jun 2021
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AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Kristine Karstens, 08 Jun 2021
Kristine Karstens et al.
Data sets
Model output data of the paper: "Management induced changes of soil organic carbon on global croplands" Kristine Karstens https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4320663
Model code and software
mrsoil: MadRat Soil Organic Carbon Budget Library Kristine Karstens and Jan Philipp Dietrich https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4317933
mrcommons: MadRat Commons Input Data Library Bodirsky, Benjamin Leon, Karstens, Kristine, Baumstark, Lavinia, Weindl, Isabelle, Wang, Xiaoxi, Mishra, Abhijeet, Wirth, Stephen, Stevanovic, Mishko, Steinmetz, Nele, Kreidenweis, Ulrich, Rodrigues, Renato, Popov, Roman, Humpenoeder, Florian, Giannousakis, Anastasis, Levesque, Antoine, Klein, David, Araujo, Ewerton, Beier, Felicitas, Oeser, Julian, Pehl, Michaja, Leip, Debbora, Molina Bacca, Edna, Martinelli, Eleonora, Schreyer, Felix, and Dietrich, Jan Philipp https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3822009
Kristine Karstens et al.
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