Open Access
Multi-modelling predictions show high uncertainty of required carbon input changes to reach a 4‰ target
(Wiley, 2022) Bruni, Elisa; Chenu, Claire; Abramoff, Rose Z.; Baldoni, Guido; Barkusky, Dietmar; Clivot, Hugues; Huang, Yuanyuan; Kätterer, Thomas; Pikula, Dorota; Spiegel, Heide; Virto Quecedo, Íñigo; Guenet, Bertrand; Ciencias; Zientziak
Soils store vast amounts of carbon (C) on land, and increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in already managed soils such as croplands may be one way to remove C from the atmosphere, thereby limiting subsequent warming. The main objective of this study was to estimate the amount of additional C input needed to annually increase SOC stocks by 4‰ at 16 long-term agricultural experiments in Europe, including exogenous organic matter (EOM) additions. We used an ensemble of six SOC models and ran them under two configurations: (1) with default parametrization and (2) with parameters calibrated site-by-site to fit the evolution of SOC stocks in the control treatments (without EOM). We compared model simulations and analysed the factors generating variability across models. The calibrated ensemble was able to reproduce the SOC stock evolution in the unfertilised control treatments. We found that, on average, the experimental sites needed an additional 1.5 ± 1.2 Mg C ha−1 year−1 to increase SOC stocks by 4‰ per year over 30 years, compared to the C input in the control treatments (multi-model median ± median standard deviation across sites). That is, a 119% increase compared to the control. While mean annual temperature, initial SOC stocks and initial C input had a significant effect on the variability of the predicted C input in the default configuration (i.e., the relative standard deviation of the predicted C input from the mean), only water-related variables (i.e., mean annual precipitation and potential evapotranspiration) explained the divergence between models when calibrated. Our work highlights the challenge of increasing SOC stocks in agriculture and accentuates the need to increasingly lean on multi-model ensembles when predicting SOC stock trends and related processes. To increase the reliability of SOC models under future climate change, we suggest model developers to better constrain the effect of water-related variables on SOC decomposition.
Open Access
Organic carbon storage and dynamics as affected by the adoption of irrigation in a cultivated calcareous mediterranean soil
(Frontiers Media, 2022) Antón Sobejano, Rodrigo; Derrien, Delphine; Urmeneta Martín-Calero, Henar; Van der Heijden, Gregory; Enrique Martín, Alberto; Virto Quecedo, Íñigo; Zientziak; Estatistika, Informatika eta Matematika; Institute on Innovation and Sustainable Development in Food Chain - ISFOOD; Ciencias; Estadística, Informática y Matemáticas; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
Irrigation is in the spotlight of land-use planning in semi-arid and sub-humid regions. It can be a promising practice to promote soil organic C storage (SOC), although it may also involve an increase in soil GHG emissions. Assessing the impact of its adoption on SOC storage is crucial to better understand its potential role in terms of agricultural sustainability and climate policies. In this study, we measured and modeled the changes in soil organic C storage and dynamics in the tilled soil layer (0-30 cm) of an experimental field on a calcareous soil with two different crops (maize, a C4 plant, and wheat, a C3 plant), cultivated with and without irrigation for 7 years. We hypothesized that changes in SOC storage occur when introducing irrigation and/or different crops in an agrosystem, and that they would be related to changes in the incorporation of crop residues, their partitioning between the labile and the stable fraction, and C losses bymineralization. Our results validated theses hypotheses only partially. Over the 7-year study period, irrigation significantly increased total (TOC) and sand-size (50-2,000 µm) particulate organic C (POC50-2,000) stocks in the tilled layer (0-30 cm): +7.1%TOC and +12.1%POC50-2,000 for maize, and +7.0 and +12.3% for wheat. A parallel two-pool SOC model based on TOC and POC50-2,000 fractions and the C3-C4 plant shift allowed understanding that the observed changes in SOC storage were most likely related to an increase in C inputs from crop residues, and to a more efficient incorporation of these residues with irrigation. The mean residence time of SOC in the two modeled pools did not allow to support our hypothesis of changes in SOC mineralization with irrigation. The limitations of SOC fractionation, which implied that some labile fractions might have been lost from POC50-2,000 and recovered in the fraction identified as slow-turning, together with the interaction of the carbonate-rich mineral phase of this soil can explain at least partially this observation. We conclude that irrigation can contribute to effectively increase SOC storage in themid-term, but its effectmight be dependent upon the type of crops and soil.

Virto Quecedo, Íñigo

Email Address

person.page.identifierURI

Birth Date

Job Title

Last Name

First Name

person.page.departamento

person.page.instituteName

ORCID

person.page.observainves

person.page.upna

Name

Filters

Author

Subject

Date

Has files

Item Type

Type

Settings

Sort By

Results per page

Search Results