Title Details

Director, Federal Research and Training Centre for Forests, Austria

Mirco Rodeghiero

Centre for Alpine Ecology, Italy

Mats Olsson

Vice Chairman of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Sweden                                                                           

Lead authors of chapters

Frank Hagedorn, WSL, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

Lars Vesterdal, Univ Copenhagen, Denmark

Patricia Bellamy, Cranfield University, UK

Rainer Baritz, Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften, Hannover, Germany

Helga Van Miegroet, Utah State Univ, Logan/UT

Jukka Alm, METLA, Helsinki, Finland

Agustin Rubio, Polytechnic University, Madrid, Spain

Zoltan Somogyi, ERTI, Budapest, Hungary

Nadine Rühr, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

1 Introduction to carbon in sensitive European ecosystems: from science to land management 1
Robert Jandl and Mats Olsson

1.1 Rationale for this book 1

1.2 What do we need to know about soils for reporting purposes? 3

1.3 Objectives and overview of COST Action 639 4

1.4 Working Groups of COST Action 639 4

1.5 Regional coverage 8

Appendix 1.A Management Committee of COST Action 639 9

References 12

2 Hot spots and hot moments for greenhouse gas emissions from soils 13
Frank Hagedorn and Pat Bellamy

2.1 Introduction 13

2.2 Hot spots: where are they? 15

2.3 How to quantify hot spots? 19

2.4 Mapping soil carbon at the local and regional scale 20

2.5 Case study: assessing soil carbon changes across England and Wales 22

2.6 Quantifying hot moments 27

2.7 Reporting of hot spots and hot moments 27

2.8 Conclusions 28

References 28

3 Land-use change effects on soil carbon stocks in temperate regions – development of carbon response functions 33
Lars Vesterdal, Jens Leifeld, Christopher Poeplau, Axel Don and Bas van Wesemael

3.1 Introduction 33

3.2 Previous synthesis studies on land use change effects on SOC 35

3.3 The concept of carbon response functions 37

3.4 Temporal dynamics of SOC after land use change in temperate regions 38

3.5 Implication for greenhouse gas reporting 43

3.6 Conclusions 44

References 45

4 Carbon in European soils 49
Rainer Baritz, Dietmar Zirlewagen, Robert Jones, Dominique Arrouays, Roland Hiederer, Marion Schrumpf and Winfried Riek

4.1 Existing soil carbon inventories in Europe 49

4.2 Detectability of change from soil inventories 57

4.3 Assessment of baseline carbon stocks in Europe 70

4.4 Pattern detection and predictors for carbon storage at landscape and continental scale 71

4.5 Conclusions about soil carbon baselines and change detection in Europe 79

References 79

5 Ecosystem disturbance and soil organic carbon – a review 85
Helga Van Miegroet and Mats Olsson

5.1 Introduction 85

5.2 The carbon cycle and disturbance 86

5.3 Anthropogenic disturbance due to forest harvesting 87

5.4 Natural disturbances 93

5.5 Summary and conclusions 108

References 108

6 Mountain soils in a changing climate – vulnerability of carbon stocks and ecosystem feedbacks 118
Sofie Sjogersten-Turner, Christine Alewell, Lauric Cecillon, Frank Hagedorn, Robert Jandl, Jens Leifeld, Vegard Martinsen, Andreas Schindlbacher, M. Teresa Sebastia and Helga Van Miegroet

6.1 Introduction 119

6.2 Carbon stocks and their quality 121

6.3 The role of erosion for carbon fluxes 125

6.4 Climate change in European mountains 126

6.5 Future threats to high altitude carbon storage 128

6.6 Conclusions 138

Acknowledgement 139

References 139

7 Greenhouse gas balance in disturbed peatlands 149
Jukka Alm, Kenneth A. Byrne, Ciara Hayes, Jens Leifeld, and Narasinha J. Shurpali

7.1 Origins, distribution and current use of peatlands in Europe 149

7.2 Disturbances in undrained mires 153

7.3 Disturbances due to peatland management 154

7.4 Reporting emissions of greenhouse gases from managed peatlands 156

7.5 Recovery from peat loss: restoration, afforestation or energy crops? 162

7.6 Conclusions 168

References 169

8 Soil carbon in Mediterranean ecosystems and related management problems 175
Mirco Rodeghiero, Agustın Rubio, Eugenio Dıaz-Pines, Joan Romanya, Sara Maranon-Jimenez, Guy J. Levy, Ana Patricia Fernandez-Getino, Maria Teresa Sebastia, Theodore Karyotis, Tommaso Chiti, Costantino Sirca, Afonso Martins, Manuel Madeira, Miglena Zhiyanski, Luciano Gristina and Tommaso La Mantia

8.1 Introduction 176

8.2 Mediterranean soil 177

8.3 Soil carbon stocks in the major Mediterranean ecosystems 178

8.4 Effects of wildfires on soil carbon dioxide efflux in Mediterranean ecosystems 184

8.5 Dehesas 187

8.6 Mediterranean rangelands 194

8.7 Agricultural practices and SOC 197

8.8 Soil carbon accumulated as charcoal 199

8.9 The role of soil inorganic carbon in the carbon cycle 200

8.10 Conclusions 204

Acknowledgement 206

References 207

9 Reporting requirements for the estimation of greenhouse gas emissions and removals of soils in the land use sector 219
Zoltan Somogyi, Ciara Hayes, Alexandra Freudenschuß and Rainer Baritz

9.1 Introduction 219

9.2 Information to be reported in a national GHG inventory 221

9.3 Concepts of estimating emissions and removals 222

9.4 Carbon pools 224

9.5 The simplified representation the forest carbon cycle 225

9.6 Land use and land use types, and their identification 226

9.7 Carbon stock changes in the mineral soil pool 228

9.8 Carbon stock changes in the organic soil pool 228

9.9 Possible data sources 230

9.10 Uncertainties, QA/QC and verification 231

9.11 The current status of reporting carbon stock changes 231

References 237

10 Estimating soil carbon stock changes by process-based models and soil inventories – uncertainties and complementarities 239
Annemieke I. Gardenas, Per-Erik Jansson, Erik Karltun, Leif Klemendtsson, Aleksi Lehtonen, Carina Ort´ız, Taru Palosuo and Magnus Svensson

10.1 Introduction 239

10.2 Cases studies illustrating the use of models in estimating SOC and GHG 243

10.3 Uncertainty in SOC stocks estimated using process-oriented models 259

10.4 Conclusions 261

Acknowledgement 262

References 262

11 Soil carbon in sensitive European ecosystems: from science to land management – a summary 267
Robert Jandl, Jukka Alm, Lars Vesterdal, Mats Olsson, Peter Weiss, Sofie Sjogersten, Mirco Rodeghiero, Jens Leifeld, Frank Hagedorn, Pat Bellamy and Rainer Baritz

11.1 Problem statement and reporting requirements 268

11.2 Question on a baseline for soil carbon stocks 270

11.3 Where should we measure and monitor? 271

11.4 Human and non-human induced changes of the soil carbon pool 272

11.5 Specific cases of sensitive ecosystems 276

11.6 Challenges for reporting 277

References 278

Index 283

“On balance, however, I recommend purchasing this book for university libraries and research institutes and for anyone interested in soil C storage.”  (European Journal of Soil Science, 1 November 2012)