Carbono organico de los suelos de Mexico | Organic carbon of Mexican soils
2005
Segura-Castruita, M.A. | Sanchez-Guzman, P. | Ortiz-Solorio, C.A. | Gutierrez-Castorena, M. del C.
The amount of soil organic carbon (SOC) is usually obtained from the soil profile data of soil survey maps. The resulted values are generalized into soil maps to estimate regional and national values of SOC by geographic information systems (GIS). In Mexico, most of the official soil maps do not have information on soil properties and the ones that do are mostly related to the central region of the country, making application limited. The objectives of the present research were to determine the amount of soil organic carbon in the surface horizon of Mexican soils and to estimate its contribution by state, ecological region, land use, and human activity. A five by five kilometer grid superimposed on digital maps (scale 1:250 000) was used to select the sampling sites. A total of 4583 samples were taken from the top 20 cm of the soil profile. In addition, geographic coordinates, land use, and human activity were recorded at each study site. Soil organic content was obtained in a laboratory from each soil sample to generate a raster map of SOC. Information about state boundaries, land use, and human activity was superimposed on the SOC raster map by GIS. The results showed that the topsoil of Mexico has a SOC content of 10.5 Pg observing the highest values in dry and rain forest areas.
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