Climate and land use changes effects on soil organic carbon stocks in a Mediterranean semi-natural area

Beatriz Lozano-García; Miriam Muñoz-Rojas; Luis Parras-Alcántara

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.11.111

Climate and land use changes effects on soil organic carbon stocks in a Mediterranean semi-natural area

Sci Total Environ. 2017 Feb 1:579:1249-1259. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.11.111. Epub 2016 Nov 29.

Authors

Beatriz Lozano-García¹, Miriam Muñoz-Rojas², Luis Parras-Alcántara³

Affiliations

¹ SUMAS Research Group, Department of Agricultural Chemistry and Soil Science, Faculty of Science, Agrifood Campus of International Excellence - ceiA3, University of Cordoba, 14071 Cordoba, Spain. Electronic address: beatriz.lozano@uco.es.
² The University of Western Australia, School of Plant Biology, Crawley 6009, WA, Australia; Kings Park and Botanic Garden, Kings Park, Perth 6005, WA, Australia.
³ SUMAS Research Group, Department of Agricultural Chemistry and Soil Science, Faculty of Science, Agrifood Campus of International Excellence - ceiA3, University of Cordoba, 14071 Cordoba, Spain.

PMID: 27913021
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.11.111

Abstract

A thorough knowledge of the effects of climate and land use changes on the soil carbon pool is critical to planning effective strategies for adaptation and mitigation in future scenarios of global climate and land use change. In this study, we used CarboSOIL model to predict changes in soil organic carbon stocks in a semi-natural area of Southern Spain in three different time horizons (2040, 2070, 2100), considering two general circulation models (BCM2 and ECHAM5) and three IPCC scenarios (A1b, A2, B2). The effects of potential land use changes from natural vegetation (Mediterranean evergreen oak woodland) to agricultural land (olive grove and cereal) on soil organic carbon stocks were also evaluated. Predicted values of SOC contents correlated well those measured (R2 ranging from 0.71 at 0-25cm to 0.97 at 50-75cm) showing the efficiency of the model. Results showed substantial differences among time horizons, climate and land use scenarios and soil depth with larger decreases of soil organic carbon stocks in the long term (2100 time horizon) and particularly in olive groves. The combination of climate and land use scenarios (in particular conversion from current 'dehesa' to olive groves) resulted in yet higher losses of soil organic carbon stocks, e.g. -30, -15 and -33% in the 0-25, 25-50 and 50-75cm sections respectively. This study shows the importance of soil organic carbon stocks assessment under both climate and land use scenarios at different soil sections and point towards possible directions for appropriate land use management in Mediterranean semi natural areas.

Keywords: CarboSOIL; Climate change scenarios; Land use change; Mediterranean evergreen oak woodland-dehesa; Olive groves.