Storage of soil carbon is not sequestration: Straightforward graphical visualization of their basic differences
Contenu
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Titre
Storage of soil carbon is not sequestration: Straightforward graphical visualization of their basic differences
European Journal of Soil Science
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Créateur
Philippe C. Baveye
Jacques Berthelin
Daniel Tessier
Gilles Lemaire
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Sujet
climate change mitigation
microbial activity
soil carbon modeling
soil functions
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Résumé
Over the last few years, in the literature on the incorporation of crop residues in agricultural fields to mitigate climate change, there has been a growing tendency to no longer distinguish between the storage and the sequestration of organic carbon in soils. Applying, apparently for the first time, a simple “back-of-the-envelope” calculation to available mineralization kinetics data, we show graphically that there are fundamental differences, both quantitatively and qualitatively, between the two concepts of storage and sequestration. To avoid confusion, they should therefore never be used interchangeably, especially when addressing farmers and policy makers. Several simplifying assumptions made in the calculations, and about which a considerable lack of understanding persists, mean that at this stage, the graphical visualization we obtained is likely to still be optimistic in terms of the already low (10%) efficacy of sequestering carbon in soils. Several research avenues are outlined to deepen our grasp of the processes involved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
