Vertical variations of soil carbon under different land uses in a karst critical zone observatory (CZO), SW China

Qin, Cai-Qing; Li, Siliang; Yu, Guanghui; Bass, Adrian M.; Xu, Sheng

doi:10.1016/j.geoderma.2022.115741

Cited by 19 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 80 publications

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“…Satellite based studies can only quantify aboveground carbon, but ignore soil carbon. Previous studies have shown that soil carbon is an important component of the total carbon stocks of karst ecosystems (Ni et al, 2015), and restoration projects in southern China did not only increase aboveground woody biomass but also had a documented positive impact on the soil carbon (Qin et al, 2022), which is not detected by our work. Promoting forest restoration and increasing tree cover to improve the above and belowground carbon stocks is a nature-based climate solution and a possible way to mitigate global climate change by removing CO 2 from the atmosphere (Doelman et al, 2020;Griscom et al, 2017).…”

Section: A Win-win Situation By Restoration Projectscontrasting

confidence: 81%

The Carbon Sink Potential of Southern China After Two Decades of Afforestation

Zhang,

Brandt,

Yue

et al. 2022

Earth's Future

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Afforestation and land use changes that sequester carbon from the atmosphere in the form of woody biomass have turned southern China into one of the largest carbon sinks globally, which contributes to mitigating climate change. However, forest growth saturation and available land that can be forested limit the longevity of this carbon sink, and while a plethora of studies have quantified vegetation changes over the last decades, the remaining carbon sink potential of this area is currently unknown. Here, we train a model with multiple predictors characterizing the heterogeneous landscapes of southern China and predict the biomass carbon carrying capacity of the region for 2002–2017. We compare observed and predicted biomass carbon density and find that during about two decades of afforestation, 2.34 PgC have been sequestered between 2002 and 2017, and a total of 5.32 Pg carbon can potentially still be sequestrated. This means that the region has reached 73% of its aboveground biomass carbon carrying capacity in 2017, which is 12% more than in 2002, equal to a decrease of 0.77% per year. We identify potential afforestation areas that can still sequester 2.39 PgC, while old and new forests have reached 87% of their potential with 1.85 PgC remaining. Our work locates areas where vegetation has not yet reached its full potential but also shows that afforestation is not a long‐term solution for climate change mitigation.

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Section: A Win-win Situation By Restoration Projectscontrasting

confidence: 81%

The Carbon Sink Potential of Southern China After Two Decades of Afforestation

Zhang,

Brandt,

Yue

et al. 2022

Earth's Future

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“…During the rainy season of 2017, the accumulated precipitation was approximately 970 mm, amounting to 85.9% of the aggregate annual rainfall, and the mean temperature was 21.3 °C. In contrast, the mean temperature recorded during the arid period was 11.2 °C. , …”

Section: Study Areasmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…Soils were pulverized and passed through an 80-mesh sieve, acidified with HCl (0.5 mol L –1 ) for 24 h to remove inorganic C, washed to neutrality using distilled water, dried at 60 °C to a constant weight, and then pulverized and passed through a 100-mesh sieve. Subsamples were used to measure SOC concentrations with an elemental analyzer (Vario MAX CNS analyzer, Elementar Analysensysteme, Hanau, Germany), and data on organic matter have been published in …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short-Term Soil CO₂ Concentration Responses to Precipitation Events in Karst Land with Diverse Vegetation Coverage in Southwestern China

Fu,

Zeng,

Wang

2023

ACS Earth Space Chem.

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Exploring the short-term fluctuations in soil carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations is critical for understanding the terrestrial carbon (C) cycle, especially in karst soil due to its vast C reserves and fragile eco-environment. In this study, we investigated the rainfall-event-driven CO2 concentration variations in the soil profiles of cropland (CR), abandoned cropland (AC), grassland (SG), and secondary forest (SF) in a typical karst watershed by a sensor technique to understand the short-term soil CO2 dynamics and their controls at different recovery stages. Our results showed that the CO2 concentrations in all studied soil types responded to rainfall quickly and decreased significantly during rainfall. CR had the largest decrease (1350 ppm), followed by AC (912 ppm), with a response time of approximately 150 min. By contrast, the decreases in soil CO2 in SG and SF were smaller, with decreases of 428 and 155 ppm and shorter response times of approximately 45 min. The soil CO2 concentration showed an obvious diurnal variation pattern consistent with the soil temperature, but there was a lag effect of soil CO2. After rainfall, the diurnal difference in soil CO2 concentration decreased, which may be due to a decrease in temperature difference or may be related to soil CO2 entering groundwater or being consumed by the chemical weathering of carbonates. Our data indicated that the sensitivity of both soil C production and loss to environmental changes such as temperature and precipitation varies in soils with different vegetation recoveries in karst areas. As vegetation recovers, CO2 drops less during rainfall, suggesting that vegetation recovery enhances soil C stability, thereby helping to sequester atmospheric CO2 and contribute to the enhancement of C sink functions in karst ecosystems.

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“…It was the most urbanized landscape studied, incorporating different established land uses; field experiments investigating the effects of increased organic fertilizer loadings were carried out here (J. F. Tang et al., 2020; Y. G. Zhu et al., 2017). The Houzhai catchment that formed the Karst CZO (Qin et al., 2022) encompassed China's shallowest soils, formed over limestone containing cavernous channels (H. Liu et al., 2019c). …”

Section: The China‐uk Czo Network: Demonstrating a Shift From A 2nd T...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Achieving Sustainable Earth Futures in the Anthropocene by Including Local Communities in Critical Zone Science

Naylor,

Dungait,

Zheng

et al. 2023

Earth's Future

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Critical Zone Science (CZS) explores the deep evolution of landscapes from the base of the groundwater or the saprolite‐rock interface to the top of vegetation, the zone that supports all terrestrial life. Here we propose a framework for CZS to evolve further as a discipline, building on 1st generation CZOs in natural systems and 2nd generation CZOs in human‐modified systems, to incorporate human behaviour for more holistic understanding in a 3rd generation of CZOs. This concept was tested in the China‐UK CZO programme (2016–2020) that established four CZOs across China on different lithologies. Beyond conventional CZO insights into soil resources, biogeochemical cycling and hydrology across scales, surveys of farmers and local government officials led to insights into human‐environment interactions and key pressures affecting the socio‐economic livelihoods of local farmers. These learnings combined with the CZS data identified knowledge exchange (KE) opportunities to unravel diverse factors within the Land‐Water‐Food Nexus, that could directly improve local livelihoods and environmental conditions, such as reduction in fertilizer use, contributing toward Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and environmental policies. Through two‐way local KE, the local cultural context and socio‐economic considerations were more readily apparent alongside the environmental rationale for policy and local action to improve the sustainability of farming practices. Seeking solutions to understand and remediate CZ degradation caused by human‐decision making requires the co‐design of CZS that foregrounds human behavior and the opinions of those living in human modified CZOs. We show how a new transdisciplinary CZO approach for sustainable Earth futures can improve alignment of research with the practical needs of communities in stressed environments and their governments, supporting social‐ecological and planetary health research agendas and improving capacity to achieve SDGs.

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Vertical variations of soil carbon under different land uses in a karst critical zone observatory (CZO), SW China

Cited by 19 publications

References 80 publications

The Carbon Sink Potential of Southern China After Two Decades of Afforestation

The Carbon Sink Potential of Southern China After Two Decades of Afforestation

Short-Term Soil CO₂ Concentration Responses to Precipitation Events in Karst Land with Diverse Vegetation Coverage in Southwestern China

Achieving Sustainable Earth Futures in the Anthropocene by Including Local Communities in Critical Zone Science

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Vertical variations of soil carbon under different land uses in a karst critical zone observatory (CZO), SW China

Cited by 19 publications

References 80 publications

The Carbon Sink Potential of Southern China After Two Decades of Afforestation

The Carbon Sink Potential of Southern China After Two Decades of Afforestation

Short-Term Soil CO2 Concentration Responses to Precipitation Events in Karst Land with Diverse Vegetation Coverage in Southwestern China

Achieving Sustainable Earth Futures in the Anthropocene by Including Local Communities in Critical Zone Science

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Short-Term Soil CO₂ Concentration Responses to Precipitation Events in Karst Land with Diverse Vegetation Coverage in Southwestern China