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Publication Details
AFRICAN RESEARCH NEXUS
SHINING A SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN RESEARCH
agricultural and biological sciences
Estimates of soil carbon concentration in tropical and temperate forest and woodland from available GIS data on three continents
Global Ecology and Biogeography, Volume 22, No. 4, Year 2013
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Description
Aim: Concern about climate change, with the subsequent emergence of carbon markets and policy initiatives such as REDD (reducing carbon emissions by decreasing deforestation and forest degradation), have focused attention on assessing and monitoring terrestrial carbon reserves. Most effort has focused on above-ground forest biomass. Soil has received less attention despite containing more carbon than above-ground terrestrial biomass and the atmosphere combined. Our aim was to explore how well soil carbon concentration could be estimated on three continents from existing climate, topography and vegetation-cover data. Location: Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, China. Methods: Soil carbon concentration and leaf area index (LAI) as well as GIS-derived climate and topography variables for 65 temperate and 43 tropical, forest and woodland ecosystems, were either directly measured or estimated from freely available global datasets. We then used multiple regressions to determine how well soil carbon concentration could be predicted from LAI, climate and topography at a given site. We compared our measurements with top soil carbon estimates from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) harmonized world soil map. Results: Our empirical model based on estimates of temperature, water availability and plant productivity provided a good estimate of soil carbon concentrations (R2 = 0.79). In contrast, the values of topsoil carbon concentrations from the FAO harmonized world soil map correlated poorly with the measured values of soil carbon concentration (R2 = 0.0011). Main conclusions: The lack of correlation between the measured values of soil carbon and the values from the FAO harmonized world soil map indicate that substantial improvements in the production of soil carbon maps are needed and possible. Our results demonstrate that the inclusion of freely available GIS data offers improved estimates of soil carbon and will allow the creation of more accurate soil carbon maps. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Authors & Co-Authors
Ladd, Brenton M.
Germany, Bonn
Universität Bonn
Australia, Sydney
Unsw Sydney
Laffan, Shawn William
Australia, Sydney
Unsw Sydney
Amelung, Wulf
Germany, Bonn
Universität Bonn
Peri, Pablo Luis
Argentina, Buenos Aires
Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria Buenos Aires
Silva, Lucas De Carvalho Ramos
United States, Davis
University of California, Davis
Canada, Guelph
University of Guelph
Gervassi, Pina
Australia, Melbourne
Forest Stewardship Council Australia
Bonser, Stephen P.
Australia, Sydney
Unsw Sydney
Navall, Marcelo
Argentina
Estación Experimental Agropecuaria Santiago Del Estero
Sheil, Douglas
Uganda, Mbarara
Mbarara University of Science and Technology
Indonesia, Bogor
Center for International Forestry Research, West Java
Australia, Lismore
Southern Cross University
Statistics
Citations: 30
Authors: 9
Affiliations: 10
Identifiers
Doi:
10.1111/j.1466-8238.2012.00799.x
ISSN:
1466822X
e-ISSN:
14668238
Research Areas
Environmental
Food Security
Health System And Policy