Will European soil-monitoring networks be able to detect changes in topsoilorganic carbon content?

摘要

Within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, articles 3.3and 3.4 stipulate that some voluntary activities leading to an additional carbon(C) sequestration in soils could be accounted as C sinks in national greenhousegas inventories. These additional C stocks should be verifiable. In this work,we assess the feasibility of verifying the effects of changes in land use ormanagement practice on soil organic carbon (SOC), by comparing minimumdetectable changes in SOC concentration for existing European networks suitablefor soil monitoring. Among the tested scenarios, the minimum detectable changesdiffered considerably among the soil-monitoring networks (SMNs). Considerableeffort would be necessary for some member states to reach acceptable levels ofminimum detectable change for C sequestration accounting. For SOC, a timeinterval of about 10 years would enable the detection of some simulated largechanges in most European countries. In almost all cases, the minimum detectablechange in SOC stocks remains greater than annual greenhouse gases emissions.Therefore, it is unlikely that SMNs could be used for annual national Caccounting. However, the importance of organic C in soil functions, and as anindicator of soil condition and trends, underlines the importance ofestablishing effective national SMNs.