Leveraging drought risk reduction for sustainable food, soil and climate via soil organic carbon sequestration.

ABSTRACT: Drought is a major risk in global agriculture. Building-up soil organic carbon (SOC) enhances soil fertility and efficient use of rainwater, which can increase drought tolerance in food production. SOC management demonstrates its benefit at various locations and is a promising means to achieve food security and climate mitigation at once. However, no global assessment of its potential and co-benefits gained from SOC enhancement has been presented. Here we evaluated the extent to which SOC build-up could reduce agricultural drought risk. Using statistical analysis of spatially-explicit global crop and soil datasets, we find that relatively small enhancement in topsoil (0-30 cm) organic carbon content (OC_top) could increase drought tolerance of the food production systems operatin

SUBMITTER: Iizumi T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6930204 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature