Lateral carbon transfer from erosion in noncroplands matters

Pasquale Borrelli; Panos Panagos; Emanuele Lugato; Christine Alewell; Cristiano Ballabio; Luca Montanarella; David A Robinson

doi:10.1111/gcb.14125

Lateral carbon transfer from erosion in noncroplands matters

Glob Chang Biol. 2018 Aug;24(8):3283-3284. doi: 10.1111/gcb.14125.

Authors

Pasquale Borrelli¹, Panos Panagos², Emanuele Lugato², Christine Alewell¹, Cristiano Ballabio², Luca Montanarella², David A Robinson³

Affiliations

¹ Environmental Geosciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
² European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Directorate for Sustainable Resources, Ispra, Italy.
³ Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, ECW Bangor, Bangor, UK.

PMID: 29971951
DOI: 10.1111/gcb.14125

Abstract

This study combines two unprecedentedly high resolution (250 × 250 m) maps of soil erosion (inter-rill and rill processes) and soil organic carbon to calculate a global estimate of erosion-induced organic carbon (C) displacement. The results indicate a gross C displacement by soil erosion of 2.5-0.3+0.5 Pg C/year. The greatest share of displaced C (64%) comes from seminatural lands and forests. This suggests that lateral C transfer from erosion in noncroplands may play a more important role than previously assumed.

Publication types

Letter

MeSH terms

Agriculture / methods*
Carbon / analysis*
Forests*
Soil / chemistry*

Substances

Soil
Carbon