Instant Insights: Soil Carbon Sequestration: (121 Burleigh Dodds Science: Instant Insights)

This book features five peer-reviewed reviews on the process of soil carbon sequestration. The first chapter discusses the relationship between soil carbon sequestration and humanity, as well as the global importance of soil carbon sequestration in removing CO2 from the atmosphere. The second chapter describes the distribution and dynamics of diverse components of the soil carbon or pedological reservoir and explains the impact of anthropogenic activities on the soil. The chapter also considers the range of management strategies that may be used to restore the depleted pedologic carbon reservoir, focussing on soil organic carbon (SOC). The third chapter provides an overview of the available systems for the monitoring, reporting and verification of soil organic carbon, focussing on both their advantages and limitations. The fourth chapter discusses the challenges for large-scale application of spectral mapping when the soil and parent material are heterogeneous and surface conditions are unknown. A case study focussing on a SOC prediction map derived from the spectra of a Sentinel-2 image is also included. The final chapter evaluates the potential for carbon sequestration in temperate agroforestry systems by analysing existing data from different agroforestry practices in temperate regions worldwide.

About the Author :
Dr Cornelia Rumpel is Director of Research in the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Sciences at the French National Research Center (CNRS) located at Sorbonne University, where she leads a team investigating the fate of organic matter in natural and managed terrestrial ecosystems, including the mechanisms determining soil organic carbon sequestration. Her work deals with temperate and tropical environments and has contributed to the change of several paradigms in this important area. She is also working with industry and at the science policy interphase providing expertise in the areas of land management and climate change. Dr Matthias Kuhnert is an environmental modeller, with a wide range of experience in using data from different scales. His recent focus was on simulations of greenhouse gas emissions and soil organic carbon changes in croplands, impacts of data aggregation on model results and the development of measuring, reporting and verification systems for soil organic carbon. Dr. Oelbermann earned a Ph.D. in Soil Science from the University of Guelph and pursued post-doctoral studies at Cornell University. Currently, she holds the position of Professor in the School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Her research revolves around the study of carbon and nitrogen transformations in complex agroecosystems, encompassing a wide range of environments from sub-polar to tropical regions. Specifically, she focuses on understanding the functions and processes that govern these transformations in various agricultural systems, such as agroforestry systems and cereal-legume intercrops.