Catchment-scale carbon redistribution and delivery by water erosion in an intensively cultivated area

Wang, Zhengang; Govers, Gérard; Steegen, An; Clymans, Wim; Putte, An Van den; Langhans, Christoph; Merckx, Roel; Oost, Kristof Van

doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2010.08.010

Cited by 112 publications

(117 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…close to 1) are associated with events characterized by a high SSC. These findings are in line with other studies (Schiettecatte et al, 2008a, b;Wang et al, 2010) and emphasize the importance of event size. The contribution of interrill erosion is higher for small events and, since interrill erosion is modelled as the detachment and export of individual sediment particles, this results in a higher clay enrichment ratio.…”

Section: Sediment and Carbon Mobilization And Export Under Different supporting

confidence: 93%

“…enrichment is higher when SSC is low. This is again consistent with the Kinderveld and Ganspoel field observations (Wang et al, 2010).…”

Section: Sediment and Carbon Mobilization And Export Under Different supporting

confidence: 92%

“…The simu- lated range of enrichment ratios and the relationship between those ratios and SSC are both very similar to that which was observed at the Kinderveld and Ganspoel catchment (Fig. 5;Wang et al, 2010).…”

Section: Sediment and Carbon Mobilization And Export Under Different supporting

confidence: 81%

“…This reflects the role of event size, whereby only larger events produce significant amounts of concentrated erosion once the hydraulic threshold for rill initiation is exceeded. This large contribution of rill erosion for sediment delivery was also observed by Wang et al (2010) in the Kinderveld and Ganspoel catchment. In a modelling study, Wilken et al (2016) tested the effect of different rill initiation characteristics on carbon delivery in a catchment of similar loess-derived soils.…”

Section: Interrill and Rill/ephemeral Gully Erosionsupporting

confidence: 69%

“…However, over a simulation period of 100 years, the fluxweighted predicted clay enrichment ratio in exported sediments was found to be 1.4, which is lower than the fieldobserved ratio of 1.5-2.6 for a 6-year period for the Ganspoel and Kinderveld catchments (Wang et al, 2010). We assume that this discrepancy results from difference in sedimentological connectivity, whereas a cascade of selective erosion and deposition processes in the larger catchments lead to stronger enrichment in the delivered fines.…”

Section: Sediment and Carbon Mobilization And Export Under Different mentioning

confidence: 58%

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Modelling a century of soil redistribution processes and carbon delivery from small watersheds using a multi-class sediment transport model

2017

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Abstract.Over the last few decades, soil erosion and carbon redistribution modelling has received a lot of attention due to large uncertainties and conflicting results. For a physically based representation of event dynamics, coupled soil and carbon erosion models have been developed. However, there is a lack of research utilizing models which physically represent preferential erosion and transport of different carbon fractions (i.e. mineral bound carbon, carbon encapsulated by aggregates and particulate organic carbon). Furthermore, most of the models that have a high temporal resolution are applied to relatively short time series (< 10 yr −1 ), which might not cover the episodic nature of soil erosion. We applied the event-based multi-class sediment transport (MCST) model to a 100-year time series of rainfall observation. The study area was a small agricultural catchment (3 ha) located in the Belgium loess belt about 15 km southwest of Leuven, with a rolling topography of slopes up to 14 %. Our modelling analysis indicates (i) that interrill erosion is a selective process which entrains primary particles, while (ii) rill erosion is non-selective and entrains aggregates, (iii) that particulate organic matter is predominantly encapsulated in aggregates, and (iv) that the export enrichment in carbon is highest during events dominated by interrill erosion and decreases with event size.

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Section: Sediment and Carbon Mobilization And Export Under Different supporting

confidence: 93%

“…enrichment is higher when SSC is low. This is again consistent with the Kinderveld and Ganspoel field observations (Wang et al, 2010).…”

Section: Sediment and Carbon Mobilization And Export Under Different supporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Sediment and Carbon Mobilization And Export Under Different supporting

confidence: 81%

Section: Interrill and Rill/ephemeral Gully Erosionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: Sediment and Carbon Mobilization And Export Under Different mentioning

confidence: 58%

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Modelling a century of soil redistribution processes and carbon delivery from small watersheds using a multi-class sediment transport model

2017

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Predicting the long‐term fate of buried organic carbon in colluvial soils

Wang

Oost

Govers

2015

Global Biogeochemical Cycles

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A significant part of the soil organic carbon (SOC) that is eroded in uplands is deposited and buried in colluvial settings. Understanding the fate of this deposited soil organic carbon is of key importance for the understanding of the role of (accelerated) erosion in the global C cycle: the residence time of the deposited carbon will determine if, and for how long, accelerated erosion due to human disturbance will induce sequestration of SOC from the atmosphere to the soil. Experimental studies may provide useful information, but, given the time scale under consideration, the response of the colluvial SOC can only be simulated using numerical models which need careful calibration using field data. In this study, we present a depth explicit SOC model including soil profile evolution due to sedimentation to simulate the long-term C dynamics in colluvial soils. The SOC profile predicted by our model is in good agreement with field observations. The C burial efficiency (the ratio of current C content of the buried sediments to the original C content at the time of sedimentation) of deposited sediments exponentially decreases with time and gradually reaches an equilibrium value. This equilibrium C burial efficiency is positively correlated with the sedimentation rate. The sedimentation rate is crucial for the long-term dynamics of the deposited SOC as it controls the time that buried sediments spend at a given soil depth, thereby determining its temporal evolution of C input and decomposition rate during the burial process: C input and decomposition rate vary with depth due to the vertical variation of root distribution and soil environmental factors such as (but not limited to) humidity, temperature, and aeration. The model demonstrates that, for the profiles studied, it takes circa 300 years for the buried SOC to lose half of its C load. It would also take centuries for the SOC accumulated in colluvial soils over the past decades due to soil redistribution under mechanized agriculture to be released to the atmosphere after the application of soil conservation measures such as conservation tillage.

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Dryland, calcareous soils store (and lose) significant quantities of near‐surface organic carbon

et al. 2016

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Semiarid ecosystems are susceptible to changes in dominant vegetation which may have significant implications for terrestrial carbon dynamics. The present study examines the distribution of organic carbon (OC) between particle size fractions in near-surface (0-0.05 m) soil and the water erosion-induced redistribution of particle-associated OC over a grass-shrub ecotone, in a semiarid landscape, subject to land degradation. Coarse (>2 mm) particles have comparable average OC concentrations to the fine (<2 mm) particles, accounting for~24-38% of the OC stock in the near-surface soil. This may be due to aggregate stabilization by precipitated calcium carbonate in these calcareous arid soils. Critically, standard protocols assuming that coarse fraction particles contain no OC are likely to underestimate soil OC stocks substantially, especially in soils with strongly stabilized aggregates. Sediment eroded from four hillslope scale (10 × 30 m) sites during rainstorm events was monitored over four annual monsoon seasons. Eroded sediment was significantly enriched in OC; enrichment increased significantly across the grass-shrub ecotone and appears to be an enduring phenomenon probably sustained through the dynamic replacement of preferentially removed organic matter. The average erosion-induced OC event yield increased sixfold across the ecotone from grass-dominated to shrub-dominated ecosystems, due to both greater erosion and greater OC enrichment. This erosional pathway is rarely considered when comparing the carbon budgets of grasslands and shrublands, yet this accelerated efflux of OC may be important for long-term carbon storage potentials of dryland ecosystems.

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Catchment-scale carbon redistribution and delivery by water erosion in an intensively cultivated area

Cited by 112 publications

References 44 publications

Modelling a century of soil redistribution processes and carbon delivery from small watersheds using a multi-class sediment transport model

Modelling a century of soil redistribution processes and carbon delivery from small watersheds using a multi-class sediment transport model

Predicting the long‐term fate of buried organic carbon in colluvial soils

Dryland, calcareous soils store (and lose) significant quantities of near‐surface organic carbon

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