Increased straw return promoted soil organic carbon accumulation in China's croplands over the past 40 years

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Quantifying changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks within croplands across a broad spatiotemporal scale in response to anthropogenic and environmental factors offers valuable insights for sustainable agriculture aimed to improve soil health. Using a validated and widely used soil carbon model RothC, we simulated the SOC dynamics across intensive croplands in China that support ∼22 % of the global population using only 7 % of the global cropland area. The modelling results demonstrate that the optimized RothC effectively captures SOC dynamics measured across 29 long-term field trials during 40 years. Between 1980 and 2020, the average SOC at the top 30 cm in croplands increased from 40 Mg C ha−1 to 49 Mg C ha−1, resulting in a national carbon sequestration of 1100 Tg C, with an average carbon sequestration rate of 27 Tg C yr−1. The annual increase rate of SOC (relative to the SOC stock of the previous year), starting at <0.2 % yr−1 in the 1980s, reached around 0.4 % yr−1 in the 1990s and further rose to about 0.8 % yr−1 in the 2000s and 2010s. Notably, the eastern and southern regions, comprising about 40 % of the croplands, contributed about two-thirds of the national SOC gain. In northeast China, SOC slightly decreased from 58 Mg C ha−1 in 1980 to 57 Mg C ha−1 in 2020, resulting in a total decline of 28 Tg C. Increased organic C inputs, particularly from the straw return, was the crucial factor in SOC increase. Future strategies should focus on region-specific optimization of straw management. Specifically, in northeast China, increasing the proportion of straw returned to fields can prevent further SOC decline. In regions with SOC increase, such as the eastern and southern regions, diversified straw utilization (e.g., bioenergy production), could further mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.