Carbon sequestration in the uplands of Eastern China: an analysis with high-resolution model simulations
- Purdue University
- Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University
- Universitat zu Koln
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- BATTELLE (PACIFIC NW LAB)
Using the DeNitrification-DeComposition (DNDC, version 9.5) model, we investigated the soil organic carbon (SOC) changes from 1980 to 2009 in Eastern China's upland-crop fields (3.7% of the land area of China) in northern Jiangsu Province. A currently most detailed high-resolution soil database, containing 17,024 polygons at a scale of 1:50,000, derived from 983 unique upland soil profiles, was used. A coarser county-level soil database was also used for a pair-wise simulation for comparison. We found that SOC changes modeled with the county-level soil database differ significantly from those with high-resolution soil data, with the deviation ranging from -64% to 8.0% in different counties. This implies that coarse soil data may lead to large biases in SOC simulation. With the high-resolution database, the model estimates a SOC increase of 37.89 Tg C in the top soils (0-50 cm) over the study area of 3.93 Mha for the past three decades, with an average rate of 322 kg C ha-1 year-1. The SOC accumulation in the study region accounts for 10.2% of annual national carbon sequestration, underscoring its significance to national climate mitigation. The annual SOC change varied between 61 to 519 kg C ha-1 year-1, mainly driven by the variations in N-fertilizer and manure applications. This study highlights the significance of high-resolution soil databases in quantifying SOC changes. Our high-resolution estimates of SOC will support farming and carbon management in this region.
- Research Organization:
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC05-76RL01830
- OSTI ID:
- 1706097
- Report Number(s):
- PNNL-SA-114541
- Journal Information:
- Soil & Tillage Research, Journal Name: Soil & Tillage Research Vol. 158
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Quantifying the impacts of agricultural management and climate change on soil organic carbon changes in the uplands of Eastern China
Toward optimal soil organic carbon sequestration with effects of agricultural management practices and climate change in Tai-Lake paddy soils of China