Land cover change and soil organic carbon stocks in the Republic of Ireland 1851–2000

Abstract

Using both historic records and CORINE land cover maps, we assessed the impact of land cover change on the stock of soil organic carbon (SOC) in the Republic of Ireland from 1851 to 2000. We identified ten principal land cover classes: arable land, forest, grassland, heterogeneous agricultural areas/other, nonvegetated semi-natural areas, peatland, suburban, urban, water bodies, and wetland. For each land cover class, the SOC stock was estimated as the product of SOC density and land cover area. These were summed to calculate a national SOC budget for the Republic of Ireland. The Republic of Ireland's 6.94 million hectares of land have undergone considerable change over the past 150 years. The most striking feature is the decrease in arable land from 1.44 million ha in 1851 to 0.55 million ha in 2000. Over the same time period, forested land increased by 0.53 million ha. As of 2000, agricultural lands including arable land (7.85%), grassland (54.33%), and the heterogeneous agricultural areas/other class (7.91%) account for 70.09% of Irish land cover. We estimate that the SOC stock in the Republic of Ireland, to 1 m depth, has increased from 1,391 Tg in 1851 to 1,469 Tg in 2000 despite soil loss due to urbanization. This increase is largely due to the increase of forested land with its higher SOC stocks when compared to agricultural lands. Peatlands contain a disproportionate quantity of the SOC stock. Although peatlands only occupy 17.36% of the land area, as of 2000, they represented 36% of the SOC stock (to 1 m depth).

Temporal optimisation of image acquisition for land cover classification with Random Forest and MODIS time-series

“…Grassland was split into the sub-classes Improved (GA) and SemiImproved (GS) in recognition of the ecological and economic importance of pasture in Ireland, where this particular land-cover type accounts for 55% of the total land surface and 90% of the agricultural areas (Eaton, 2008). Cropland was omitted due to its small parcel sizes and scarcity in the study area.…”

Impacts of land use change in soil carbon and nitrogen in a Mediterranean agricultural area (Southern Spain)

“…Land use change (LUC) is considered the second greatest cause of C emissions after fuel consumption (Watson et al, 2000). LUC has contributed to soil degradation and soil loss, leading to a decrease in soil C storage worldwide (Eaton et al, 2008), and even more intensely in the Mediterranean areas during the last few decades (Cerdà et al, 2010). Longterm experimental studies have confirmed that SOC is highly sensitive to LUC (Smith, 2008).…”

Técnicas de restauración de suelos basadas en el uso de residuos orgánicos: seis años de beneficios sobre las propiedades de un suelo forestal

“…P R E -P R I N T V E R S I O N disponibilidad de nutrientes para las plantas (Brevick, 2009;Ruiz-Sinoga et al, 2012;Tesfahunegn, 2013). La materia orgánica de los suelos es el producto de la descomposición química de las excreciones de animales y microorganismos, de residuos de plantas o de la degradación de cualquiera de ellos tras su muerte (Eaton et al, 2008;Parras-Alcántara et al, 2013). En este sentido, numerosos estudios han descrito cómo el uso de enmiendas orgánicas podría constituir una manera eficaz de incrementar el SOC y así, a largo plazo, favorecer la estructura y actividad microbiológica de ambientes degradados (Albiach et al, 2001;Roldán et al, 2001;Ferreras et al, 2006).…”

“…Los suelos constituyen un recurso básico por lo que su "salud" debe de ser conservada en aras de mantener la productividad y diversidad de los ecosistemas terrestres (COM, 2002;Eaton et al, 2008). Así, juegan un papel fundamental en la provisión de alimentos, ayudan a mantener la calidad de aire y agua y son grandes proveedores de biodiversidad (Keesstra et al, 2016).…”