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Climate Change and Crops pp 81–111Cite as

Carbon Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes from Cropland Soils – Climate Opportunities and Threats

Part of the Environmental Science and Engineering book series (ESE)

Abstract

Globally, soils contain approximately 1500 Pg (1 Pg = 1Gt = 1015 g) of organic carbon (C) (Batjes 1996), roughly three times the amount of carbon in vegetation and twice the amount in the atmosphere (IPCC 2001). The annual uxes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from atmosphere to land (global Net Primary Productivity [NPP]) and land to atmosphere (respiration and re) are of the order of 60 Pg Cyr−1 (IPCC 2001). during 1990s, fossil fuel combustion and cement production emitted 6.3 ± 1.3 Pg Cyr−1 to the atmosphere, while land-use change accounted for 1.6 ± 0.8PgCyr−1 (Schimel et al. 2001; IPCC 2001).Atmospheric C increased at a rate of 3.2 ± 0.1PgCyr−1, the oceans absorbed 2.3 ± 0.8PgCyr−1 and therewas an estimated terrestrial sink of 2.3 ± 1.3PgCyr−1 (Schimel et al. 2001; IPCC 2001). The amount of carbon stored in soils globally is, therefore, very large compared to gross and net annual uxes of carbon to and from the terrestrial biosphere, and the pools of carbon in the atmosphere and vegetation. Human intervention, via cultivation and disturbance, has also decreased the soil carbon pools relative to the store typically achieved under native vegetation. Historically, these processes have caused a loss of soil C between 40 and 90 Pg C globally (Paustian et al. 1998; Houghton et al. 1999; Lal 1999). Hence, increasing the size of the global soil carbon pool by even a small proportion has the potential to sequester large amounts of carbon, and thus help mitigate climate change.

Keywords

  • Carbon Sequestration
  • Soil Carbon
  • Mitigation Potential
  • Global Change Biol
  • Soil Carbon Stock

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Met Of ce Hadley Centre for Climate Change, Fitzroy Road, Exeter, Devon, EX1 3PB, UK

    Pete Falloon

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  1. Pete Falloon
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  2. Pete Smith
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  3. Richard Betts
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  4. Chris D. Jones
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  5. Jo Smith
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  6. Deborah Hemming
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  7. Andy Challinor
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Correspondence to Pete Falloon .

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  1. Environmental Science Division, National Botanical Research Inst. (NBRI), Rana Pratap Marg, Lucknow, 226001, India

    S. N. Singh

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Falloon, P. et al. (2009). Carbon Sequestration and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes from Cropland Soils – Climate Opportunities and Threats. In: Singh, S.N. (eds) Climate Change and Crops. Environmental Science and Engineering. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-88246-6_5

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