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A high resolution map of French soil organic carbon

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Abstract

Soil is a major carbon pool ruling the global C cycle and in climate change because soil carbon is a source and a sink of atmospheric CO2. Soil organic carbon also controls many beneficial properties such as fertility, aggregate stability and degradation of groundwater pollutants. Therefore mapping soil carbon at landscape scale is needed to define appropriate management that will favour higher soil quality. Actual soil carbon maps of France have a too coarse resolution, i.e. 8 and 12 km, to define efficient land management practices. Therefore, here, we model soil organic carbon in France at a resolution of 250 m. We study the impact of land use, soil type, climate and agro-management on soil organic carbon. We found that the total soil carbon stock in France is about 3.7 ± 1.3 Pg. Results also show that the precipitation pattern dominates the overall spatial distribution of soil carbon. Land use is the most important factor controlling organic carbon changes at landscape scale. Our high resolution national map of soil organic C will be useful to define land management practices that will improve soil quality.

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Abbreviations

ADEME:

French Environment and Energy Management Agency

AGRESTE:

French Ministry of Agriculture Food and Fishery

AIC:

Akaike information criterion

AICc:

Corrected Akaike information criterion

BIC:

Bayesian information criterion

CEC:

Commission of the European Communities

dg:

geometric mean particle size

EEA:

European Environment Agency

FAO:

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

FYM:

Farm yard manure

GEFSOC:

Global Environment Facility Soil Organic Carbon

GIS:

Geographical Information System

Gt C:

Giga ton carbon

INRA:

French National Institute for Agricultural Research

Pg C:

Peta gram carbon

RMSE:

Root mean square error

RMQS:

French National Soil Survey (Réseau de Mesures de la Qualité des Sols)

RothC model:

Rothamsted carbon model

RPD:

Ratio of performance to deviation

R 2adj :

Adjusted coefficient of determination

SMU:

Soil mapping units

SOC:

Soil organic carbon

STU:

Soil topological units

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Acknowledgements

The RMQS was financed by the “Groupement d’Intérêt Scientifique Sol”. Jeroen Meersmans post-doctoral position was funded by the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME). We thank all the people involved in sampling and sample preparation and analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. INRA Orléans, InfoSol Unit, avenue de la pomme de pin 2163, CS 40001, Ardon, 45075, Orléans, cedex 2, France

    Jeroen Meersmans, Manuel Pascal Martin, Eva Lacarce, Claudy Jolivet, Line Boulonne, Sébastien Lehmann, Nicolas Philippe Anthony Saby & Dominique Arrouays

  2. Earth and Life Institute (ELI), Georges Lemaître Centre for Earth and Climate Research (TECLIM), Université catholique de Louvain, Place Louis Pasteur 3, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Sarah De Baets

  3. Agriculture and Forestry Department, ADEME, 49004, Angers, cedex 01, France

    Antonio Bispo

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  1. Jeroen Meersmans
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  2. Manuel Pascal Martin
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  3. Eva Lacarce
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  8. Nicolas Philippe Anthony Saby
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  10. Dominique Arrouays
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Correspondence to Jeroen Meersmans.

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Meersmans, J., Martin, M.P., Lacarce, E. et al. A high resolution map of French soil organic carbon. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 32, 841–851 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13593-012-0086-9

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