Human-induced erosion has offset one-third of carbon emissions from land cover change

Wang, Zhengang; Hoffmann, Thomas; Six, Johan; Kaplan, Jed O.; Govers, Gérard; Doetterl, Sebastian; Oost, Kristof Van

doi:10.1038/nclimate3263

Cited by 172 publications

(127 citation statements)

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“…Furthermore, we find a cumulative soil loss of 1888 ± 753 Pg and cumulative SOC removal flux of 22±5 Pg C from agricultural land over the entire time period (CTR simulation). This soil loss flux lies in the range of 2480 ± 720 Pg found by Wang et al (2017) for the same time period, while the SOC removal flux is significantly lower than the 63±19 Pg C found by Wang et al (2017). Wang et al (2017) used only recent climate data in his study while we explicitly include the effects of changes in precipitation and temperature on global soil erosion rates and the SOC stocks in our study, which may partly explain this difference.…”

Section: Validation Of Model Resultsmentioning

confidence: 55%

“…Together with dynamic replacement of removed SOC by new litter input at the eroding sites, and the progressive exposure of carbon-poor deep soils, this translocated and buried SOC can lead to a net carbon sink at the catchment scale, potentially offsetting a large part of the carbon emissions from LUC (Berhe et al, 2007;Bouchoms et al, 2017;Harden et al, 1999;Hoffmann et al, 2013a;Lal, 2003;Stallard, 1998;Wang et al, 2017).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The slow pace of carbon sequestration by soil erosion and deposition Wang et al, 2017) and the slowly decomposing SOC pools require the simulation of soil erosion at timescales longer than a few decades to fully quantify its impacts on the SOC dynamics. This, and the high spatial resolution that soil erosion models typically require, complicates the introduction of soil erosion and related processes in LSMs that use short time steps (≈ 30 min) for simulating energy fluxes and require intensive computing resources.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Global soil organic carbon removal by water erosion under climate change and land use change during AD 1850–2005

et al. 2018

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Abstract. Erosion is an Earth system process that transports carbon laterally across the land surface and is currently accelerated by anthropogenic activities. Anthropogenic land cover change has accelerated soil erosion rates by rainfall and runoff substantially, mobilizing vast quantities of soil organic carbon (SOC) globally. At timescales of decennia to millennia this mobilized SOC can significantly alter previously estimated carbon emissions from land use change (LUC). However, a full understanding of the impact of erosion on land-atmosphere carbon exchange is still missing. The aim of this study is to better constrain the terrestrial carbon fluxes by developing methods compatible with land surface models (LSMs) in order to explicitly represent the links between soil erosion by rainfall and runoff and carbon dynamics. For this we use an emulator that represents the carbon cycle of a LSM, in combination with the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model. We applied this modeling framework at the global scale to evaluate the effects of potential soil erosion (soil removal only) in the presence of other perturbations of the carbon cycle: elevated atmospheric CO 2 , climate variability, and LUC. We find that over the period AD 1850-2005 acceleration of soil erosion leads to a total potential SOC removal flux of 74 ± 18 Pg C, of which 79 %-85 % occurs on agricultural land and grassland. Using our best estimates for soil erosion we find that including soil erosion in the SOC-dynamics scheme results in an increase of 62 % of the cumulative loss of SOC over 1850-2005 due to the combined effects of climate variability, increasing atmospheric CO 2 and LUC. This additional erosional loss decreases the cumulative global carbon sink on land by 2 Pg of carbon for this specific period, with the largest effects found for the tropics, where deforestation and agricultural expansion increased soil erosion rates significantly. We conclude that the potential effect of soil erosion on the global SOC stock is comparable to the effects of climate or LUC. It is thus necessary to include soil erosion in assessments of LUC and evaluations of the terrestrial carbon cycle.

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Section: Validation Of Model Resultsmentioning

confidence: 55%

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Global soil organic carbon removal by water erosion under climate change and land use change during AD 1850–2005

et al. 2018

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“…National and regional-scale maps of past land use and land cover exist regionally from the late 18th century onwards (e.g., [19]). However, the terrestrial biosphere, the carbon cycle and even the global climate are influenced even today by events including deforestation and soil erosion that took place much earlier [20][21][22][23]. The importance of understanding land use history beyond recent centuries and the lack of direct, large-scale observations have led to the development of models of anthropogenic land cover change.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…ALCC scenarios have been used to estimate the impact of humans on the carbon cycle [26], regional and global climate [20,27,28], freshwater and marine ecosystems [29], geomorphology and landscape dynamics [23,30] and biodiversity [31,32], among others. Despite their utility, the evaluation of ALCC models and their scenarios has received relatively little attention [33].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constraining the Deforestation History of Europe: Evaluation of Historical Land Use Scenarios with Pollen-Based Land Cover Reconstructions

Kaplan

Krumhardt

Gaillard

et al. 2017

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Anthropogenic land cover change (ALCC) is the most important transformation of the Earth system that occurred in the preindustrial Holocene, with implications for carbon, water and sediment cycles, biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services and regional and global climate. For example, anthropogenic deforestation in preindustrial Eurasia may have led to feedbacks to the climate system: both biogeophysical, regionally amplifying winter cold and summer warm temperatures, and biogeochemical, stabilizing atmospheric CO 2 concentrations and thus influencing global climate. Quantification of these effects is difficult, however, because scenarios of anthropogenic land cover change over the Holocene vary widely, with increasing disagreement back in time. Because land cover change had such widespread ramifications for the Earth system, it is essential to assess current ALCC scenarios in light of observations and provide guidance on which models are most realistic. Here, we perform a systematic evaluation of two widely-used ALCC scenarios (KK10 and HYDE3.1) in northern and part of central Europe using an independent, pollen-based reconstruction of Holocene land cover (REVEALS). Considering that ALCC in Europe primarily resulted in deforestation, we compare modeled land use with the cover of non-forest vegetation inferred from the pollen data. Though neither land cover change scenario matches the pollen-based reconstructions precisely, KK10 correlates well with REVEALS at the country scale, while HYDE systematically underestimates land use with increasing magnitude with time in the past. Discrepancies between modeled and reconstructed land use are caused by a number of factors, including assumptions of per-capita land use and socio-cultural factors that cannot be predicted on the basis of the characteristics of the physical environment, including dietary preferences, long-distance trade, the location of urban areas and social organization.

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Biogeochemistry in Dynamic Landscapes

Berhe

Ghezzehei

2022

Multi‐Scale Biogeochemical Processes in Soil Ecosystems

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Human-induced erosion has offset one-third of carbon emissions from land cover change

Cited by 172 publications

References 40 publications

Global soil organic carbon removal by water erosion under climate change and land use change during AD 1850–2005

Global soil organic carbon removal by water erosion under climate change and land use change during AD 1850–2005

Constraining the Deforestation History of Europe: Evaluation of Historical Land Use Scenarios with Pollen-Based Land Cover Reconstructions

Biogeochemistry in Dynamic Landscapes

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