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Farm-Scale Soil Carbon Auditing

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Pedometrics

Part of the book series: Progress in Soil Science ((PROSOIL))

Abstract

The soil system is recognized as a significant terrestrial sink of carbon. Estimates for the top meter of soil in the world range between 1,200 and 2,500 petagrams for organic C (Batjes 1996; Lal 2004). The reliable assessment and monitoring of soil carbon stocks is of key importance for soil conservation and in mitigation strategies for increased atmospheric carbon (Stockmann et al. 2013). Carbon credits are the heart of a cap-and-trade scheme, by offering a way to quantify carbon sequestered from the atmosphere; carbon credits gain a monetary value to offset a given amount of carbon dioxide releases (Paustian et al. 2009). The agricultural industry worldwide has the capacity to capture and store carbon emissions in soil (Paustian et al. 2000). However, there is still a debate on how soil can benefit for the offsets in the carbon economy because there is no good and efficient way of measuring soil carbon storage with appropriate statistical confidence (Post et al. 2001; Smith 2004b). A scheme that can measure and monitor soil carbon storage on a farm, which is crucial to the participation of the agricultural sector in the carbon economy, is essential.

“You have been weighed,you have been measured, and you have been found wanting”. Adhemar (A Knights Tale, 2001)

This chapter is a reprint from an original paper published in the journal: Geoderma. Changes from the original article include its formatting, and the addition of cross-references to other chapters of this book and some minor textural changes. Citation of the original paper: de Gruijter, J., McBratney, A.B., Minasny, B., Wheeler, I., Malone, B., Stockmann, U., 2016. Farm-scale soil carbon auditing. Geoderma 265, 120–130.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support of the Australian Research Council via Linkage Project LP0989825 entitled “The auditability of soil carbon.” We thank our linkage partners 3DAg Pty Ltd. for their continued support. Two anonymous reviewers gave helpful suggestions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Alterra, Wageningen University and Research Centre, PO Box 32, NL-6700 AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Jaap J. de Gruijter

  2. Sydney Institute of Agriculture & School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Alex. B. McBratney, Budiman Minasny, Ichsani Wheeler, Brendan P. Malone & Uta Stockmann

Authors
  1. Jaap J. de Gruijter
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  2. Alex. B. McBratney
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  3. Budiman Minasny
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  4. Ichsani Wheeler
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  5. Brendan P. Malone
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  6. Uta Stockmann
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jaap J. de Gruijter .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sydney Institute of Agriculture & School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Alex. B. McBratney

  2. Sydney Institute of Agriculture & School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Budiman Minasny

  3. Sydney Institute of Agriculture & School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Uta Stockmann

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de Gruijter, J.J., McBratney, A.B., Minasny, B., Wheeler, I., Malone, B.P., Stockmann, U. (2018). Farm-Scale Soil Carbon Auditing. In: McBratney, A., Minasny, B., Stockmann, U. (eds) Pedometrics. Progress in Soil Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63439-5_23

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