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Stability of soil organic carbon and potential carbon sequestration at eroding and deposition sites

  • Soils, Sec 1 • Soil Organic Matter Dynamics and Nutrient Cycling • Research Article
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to explore the dynamics of the factors influencing soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration and stability at erosion and deposition sites.

Materials and methods

Thermal properties and dissolved aromatic carbon concentration along with Al, Fe concentration and soil specific surface area (SSA) were studied to 1 meter depth at two contrasting sites.

Results and discussion

Fe, Al concentrations and SSA size increased with depth and were negatively correlated with SOC concentration at the erosion site (P < 0.05), while at the deposition site, these values decreased with increasing depth and were positively correlated with SOC concentration (P < 0.05). TG mass loss showed that SOC components in the two contrasting sites were similar, but the soils in deposition site contained a larger proportion of labile organic carbon and smaller quantities of stable organic carbon compared to the erosion site. SOC stability increased with soil depth at the erosion site. However, it was slightly variable in the depositional zone. Changes in SUVA254 spectroscopy values indicated that aromatic moieties of DOC at the erosion site were more concentrated in the superficial soil layer (0–20 cm), but at the deposition site they changed little with depth and the SUVA254 values less than those at the erosion site.

Conclusions

Though large amounts of SOC accumulated in the deposition site, SOC may be vulnerable to severe losses if environmental conditions become more favorable for mineralization in the future due to accretion of more labile carbon. Deep soil layers at the erosion site (>30 cm deep) had a large carbon sink potential.

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Abbreviations

DOC:

Dissolved organic carbon

SOC:

Soil organic carbon

SSA:

Specific surface area

SUVA:

Specific UV absorbance

TG:

Thermogravimetry

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Acknowledgments

We thank Professor Brian McGarvey for providing language help and proof reading this article. This research was financially supported by projects of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41271294), “Hundred-talent Project” of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2016NZYQN28). We are also grateful to the staff in our research group, for their help on field sampling. Detailed information describing data are presented as supporting information.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, People’s Republic of China

    Wenming Ma, Zhongwu Li, Bin Huang, Xiaodong Nie, Yinmei Lu, Haibin Xiao & Guangming Zeng

  2. Key Laboratory of Environmental Biology and Pollution Control (Hunan University), Ministry of Education, Changsha, 410082, People’s Republic of China

    Wenming Ma, Zhongwu Li, Bin Huang, Xiaodong Nie, Yinmei Lu, Haibin Xiao & Guangming Zeng

  3. Southwest University for Nationalities, Chengdu, 610041, People’s Republic of China

    Wenming Ma & Keyi Ding

  4. State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yangling, Shanxi, 712100, People’s Republic of China

    Zhongwu Li

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  1. Wenming Ma
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Correspondence to Zhongwu Li or Keyi Ding.

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Ma, W., Li, Z., Ding, K. et al. Stability of soil organic carbon and potential carbon sequestration at eroding and deposition sites. J Soils Sediments 16, 1705–1717 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-016-1373-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-016-1373-x

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