Abstract
There are many factors involved in the release of CO2 emissions from the soil, such as the type of soil management, the soil organic matter, the soil temperature and moisture conditions, crop phenological stage, weather conditions, residue management, among others. This study aimed to analyse the influence of these factors and their interactions to determine the emissions by evaluating the environmental cost expressed as the kg of CO2 emitted per kg of production in each of the crops and seasons studied. For this purpose, a field trial was conducted on a farm in Seville (Spain). The study compared Conservation Agriculture, including its three principles (no-tillage, permanent soil cover, and crop rotations), with conventional tillage. Carbon dioxide emissions measured across the four seasons of the experiment showed an increase strongly influenced by rainfall during the vegetative period, in both soil management systems. The results of this study confirm that extreme events of precipitation away from the normal means, result in episodes of high CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. This is very important because one of the consequences for future scenarios of climate change is precisely the increase of extreme episodes of precipitation and periods extremely dry, depending on the area considered. The total of emission values of the different plots of the study show how the soils under the conventional system (tillage) have been emitting 67% more than soils under the conventional agriculture system during the 2010/11 campaign and 25% for the last campaign where the most appreciable differences are observed.
Highlights
In a world in which the concern for food security is increasing, there are important questions to be addressed about the impact of climate change on the production and availability of food [1,2,3]
A field experiment was conducted to study the dynamics of CO2 emissions from the soil as influenced by soil management and weather conditions
The annual rainfall ranged from 815 mm registered in 2009/10 to 268 mm in 2011/12
Summary
In a world in which the concern for food security is increasing, there are important questions to be addressed about the impact of climate change on the production and availability of food [1,2,3]. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in 2050 there will be more than 9 billion people on the planet. The agricultural sector is one of the most affected by climate change, as a result of the close relationship between agricultural activities and the climate. It is a net source of greenhouse gases emissions (GHG), as evidenced by the fact that, at European level, agriculture currently ranks third in the GHG set of issuing activities (EEA Report 5/2018: Annual European Union greenhouse gas inventory 1990–2016 and inventory report 2018).
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