Soil Carbon Stocks and Fluxes

Abstract

The aim of this chapter was to quantify the soil organic carbon (SOC) stock in the top 30 cm of mineral soil for the whole Italian territory, according to the different land use types of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) cropland category (arable land, agroforestry, vineyards, olive groves, orchards and rice fields), as a basis for future land use scenarios and to address mitigation policy at country level. Besides, two independent studies addressing the current status and the future trends of SOC for the whole cropland category at regional level were reported. The subdivision of the cropland category into classes is functional to assess the impacts on the SOC stock due to land use changes from and to agricultural uses, providing the starting or ending point scenario. The differences emphasized for the soils of a subcategory under the different types of climate can be possibly used for future-oriented agricultural practices. The comparison of the total mean values of the different cropland subcategories shows significant differences in the SOC stock. Considering the year 2000 and applying to each subcategory area the specific average SOC stock value found in this study, the total amount of C stored in the upper 30 cm of the whole cropland category results to be 516.3 ± 156.9 Tg C. This amount represents about 17 % of the total SOC estimated for the top 50 cm of soils of total surface of Italy, which reports about 2,900 Tg C, thus indicating the importance to preserve the large amount of SOC stored in cropland category. In conclusion, given the few estimates available at European level, repeated SOC inventories aimed to define the SOC content in cropland soils are important for future stock change evaluation.