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Soil Carbon pp 3–16Cite as

Challenges for Soil Organic Carbon Research

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

Abstract

The soil body is the largest terrestrial pool of organic carbon globally. Lately, research related to soil organic carbon has been a main focus worldwide, motivated by the potential the soil inhabits to become a manageable sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide and thus to mitigate climate change and the known benefits of increased soil organic carbon for the functioning of soils. Here, challenges are highlighted for soil organic carbon research that we are currently facing. Knowledge on soil organic carbon dynamics in the soil system is briefly reviewed, followed by an elaboration on how soil organic carbon dynamics and soil organic carbon stocks have been modelled in space and time and where modelling needs to go.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Unité Infosol INRA (French Institute for Agricultural Research) in Orléans for granting permission to use the SOC dataset of French agricultural soils for further analysis in this chapter. The authors would also like to thank Prof. Christian Walter, Agrocampus-Ouest in Rennes for providing this dataset and undertaking the initial analysis of the data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Alex B. McBratney

  2. Soil Security Laboratory, Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2015, Australia

    Uta Stockmann

  3. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 2560 Hochelaga Boulevard, Quebec City, QC, G1V 2J3, Canada

    Denis A. Angers

  4. Soil Security Laboratory, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Budiman Minasny

  5. Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Sydney, Biomedical Building C81, Suite 401, 1 Central Avenue, Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh, NSW, 2015, Australia

    Damien J. Field

Authors
  1. Alex B. McBratney
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  2. Uta Stockmann
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  3. Denis A. Angers
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  4. Budiman Minasny
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  5. Damien J. Field
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alex B. McBratney .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Soil Science, University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

    Alfred E. Hartemink

  2. Department of Soil Science, University of Wisconsin – Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

    Kevin McSweeney

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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McBratney, A.B., Stockmann, U., Angers, D.A., Minasny, B., Field, D.J. (2014). Challenges for Soil Organic Carbon Research. In: Hartemink, A., McSweeney, K. (eds) Soil Carbon. Progress in Soil Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04084-4_1

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