Author(s)

C. A. Booth, M. A. Fullen, B. Jankauskas, G. Jankauskiene & A. Slepetiene

Abstract

Soil organic matter (SOM) data are presented from two long-term European experimental research sites: (i) SOM data from a soil conservation site in the U.K. and (ii) SOM data from a carbon sequestration benchmarking site in Lithuania. Detailed SOM information, which also incorporates soil organic carbon (SOC), is vitally important because it plays a fundamental role in both soil conservation and carbon sequestration studies. Land management of pedogenic carbon is a recognized means of improving soil fertility, reducing soil erosion rates, enhancing soil structural stability and promoting carbon sequestration. Therefore, its benefits extend from local to global scales. For instance, the first case study illustrates the environmental benefits of changes in SOM content before (as bare soil) and after (converted to grassland) the adoption of the soil conservation technique of set-aside. The second case study introduces various analytical approaches used to calculate SOM, and demonstrates the potential difficulty of international carbon benchmarking, as part of the global policy to ameliorate climate change. Keywords: soil erosion, runoff plots, agriculture, grasslands, global warming, climate change, carbon benchmarking, IPCC, Kyoto Protocol.

Keywords

soil erosion, runoff plots, agriculture, grasslands, global warming, climate change, carbon benchmarking, IPCC, Kyoto Protocol.