The importance of accounting method and sampling depth to estimate changes in soil carbon stocks.

ABSTRACT:

Background

As interest in the voluntary soil carbon market surges, carbon registries have been developing new soil carbon measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) protocols. These protocols are inconsistent in their approaches to measuring soil organic carbon (SOC). Two areas of concern include the type of SOC stock accounting method (fixed-depth (FD) vs. equivalent soil mass (ESM)) and sampling depth requirement. Despite evidence that fixed-depth measurements can result in error because of changes in soil bulk density and that sampling to 30 cm neglects a significant portion of the soil profile's SOC stock, most MRV protocols do not specify which sampling method to use and only require sampling to 30 cm. Using data from UC Davis's Century Experiment ("Century") and UW Madiso

SUBMITTER: Raffeld AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10811869 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature