CSiTE STUDIES ON CARBON SEQUESTRATION IN SOILS

摘要

The Consortium for Research on Enhancing Carbon Sequestration in Terrestrial Ecosystems was created in 1999 to perform fundamental research that will lead to methods to enhance C sequestration as one component of a C management strategy. Research at one member of this consortium, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has focused on C sequestration in soils. Studies of C and N dynamics are leading to an understanding of the factors that affect the inputs to and outputs from soils and how these might be manipulated to enhance C sequestration. Both the quantity and the quality of soil C inputs influence C storage and the potential for C sequestration. Changes in tillage intensity and crop rotations can affect C sequestration by changing the soil physical and biological conditions and by changing the amounts and types of organic inputs to the soil. Analyses of changes in soil C are supplemented with studies of the changes in the associated management practices and their implications for fossil-fuel use, emission of other greenhouse gases such as N_2O and CH_4, and impacts on agricultural productivity. Improved understanding of the factors and mechanisms that control the spatial and temporal variations in soil C can lead to land-management strategies that incorporate C management and increase the C stocks of terrestrial ecosystems.