COS 114-3 - Soil Carbon Modeling in Croplands Under Sustainable Soil Management in Golestan Province- Iran

Background/Question/Methods

Estimating and accounting for soil carbon stock in croplands play a key role in land management. Adaptation of site-specific sustainable soil management practices in agricultural lands can sequester carbon in soils and is regarded as an effective strategy to mitigate greenhouse gases on a global scale. Predicting the magnitude and the rate of carbon sequestration in croplands depends on different factors such as soil characterization, topography, and climate. It is thus relevant to identify driving factors that have a great potential to increase soil carbon stock in different regions across a country. This study aims to estimate soil organic carbon stock in different sustainable soil management in croplands in Golestan province in Iran.

Results/Conclusions

We used the process-based Rothamsted soil Carbon Model (RothC model) in this study and calculated attainable soil organic carbon stock and carbon mineralization rate in croplands in Golestan province in Iran. This province is the one of main producers of crops canola, wheat, and barley in the country. We calculated soil organic carbon stocks in 0–30 cm of mineral soils and projected this value over 20 years, under business as usual (BAU) land use and management, and after the adoption of Sustainable Soil Management (SSM) practices in croplands and grazing lands. The BAU scenario refers to the land use, land management, production practices, or technologies that are currently being implemented (as in time = 0, or 2022) in croplands and grazing lands. SSM practices refer to management practices that are expected to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and retain it as SOC, enhance SOC accumulation, or mitigate or reverse SOC losses compared to the BAU. We predicted topsoil (0–30 cm) soil organic carbon stocks and mean annual sequestration rates after the implementation of SSM practices, over a 20-year period, estimated with the spatialized version of the RothC carbon model.