The Impact of Agricultural Soil Erosion on the Global Carbon Cycle
2007
Van Oost, K. | Quine, T. A. | Govers, G. | De Gryze, S. | Six, J. | Harden, J. W. | Ritchie, J. C. | McCarty, G. W. | Heckrath, G. | Kosmas, C. | Giraldez, J. V. | Marques da Silva, José Rafael | Merckx, R. | Bruce Alberts
Agricultural soil erosion is thought to perturb the global carbon cycle, but estimates of its effect range from a source of 1 petagram per year−1 to a sink of the same magnitude. By using caesium-137 and carbon inventory measurements from a large-scale survey, we found consistent evidence for an erosion-induced sink of atmospheric carbon equivalent to approximately 26% of the carbon transported by erosion. Based on this relationship, we estimated a global carbon sink of 0.12 (range 0.06 to 0.27) petagrams of carbon per year−1 resulting from erosion in the world’s agricultural landscapes. Our analysis directly challenges the view that agricultural erosion represents an important source or sink for atmospheric CO2.
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