Measurement of land-use effects on soil carbon and related properties for soil monitoring: a study on two soil landscapes of northern New South Wales, Australia

摘要

In Australia, and internationally, there is a growing need for information relating to soil condition, its current status, and the nature and direction of change in response to management pressures. Monitoring is therefore being promoted regionally, nationally and internationally to assess and evaluate soil condition for the purposes of reporting and prioritisation of funding for natural resource management. We present a dataset designed to assess differences in carbon and related soil properties across a range of land-use types within a basalt and granite landscape of northern NSW generated through the NSW Statewide Soil Monitoring Program. Clear and significant differences were detected between land-use types for the various soil properties determined but these effects were restricted to the near-surface soil layers (0-5em and 5-10cm). Soil properties between the other, non-woodland land-use types were largely similar apart from a modest C increase but increased soil acidity under improved pasture. Woodland soils had larger quantities of C (T/ha corrected for equivalent mass) than any other land-use. Results from this work are being used to inform the further development the NSW State-wide Soil Monitoring Program and to populate the NSW soil carbon matrix and soil carbon models for application across the State.