Soil carbon storage results from interactions between ecological processes and contributes to the global chemical regulation of the atmosphere, a vital ecosystem service. Within the ecosystem services approach, measuring soil carbon stock is used as an indicator of landscapes that function as terrestrial carbon sinks and sources. Soil carbon stock models of agricultural landscapes use national carbon stock data and are used to determine environmental benchmarks and develop land-use management strategies for improved landscape-scale carbon sequestration. The InVEST Carbon Storage model has been used as a tool to map carbon stock based on these data. However, the accuracy of the national carbon inventories of Hungary is unknown. In this study, the InVEST soil carbon stock models of two agricultural landscapes in Hungary were produced based on national soil carbon stock data and in-field collected soil sample carbon stock data. Carbon stock inventories were collated and used as InVEST carbon model inputs, and the models were mapped, compared, and evaluated to determine their usefulness in the planning of maximizing soil carbon storage in sustainable land-use management and policy development. Five InVEST soil carbon stock spatial models were produced for both agricultural landscapes, which showed great variation based on the data used to develop it. Aggregate carbon stock potentially stored in the landscape-scale study areas also varied between datasets used. Integrating soil sample data along with national carbon stock data shows prospective applicability in assessing contextual landscape-scale potential soil carbon stock storage.

Agriculture has always played a determining role in Hungarian landscapes. Forested areas were also under agricultural use; however, their use changed, starting at least from the Middle Ages when the need for new arable fields resulted in a tremendous decrease in forested areas. The protection of forests started for many reasons, saving them for fuelwood and construction materials. This is the reason why there were periods when forests of the Carpathian Basin suffered from considerable pressure, and even today, this pressure continues; however, the source changed from animal husbandry to tourism, forestry, and wildlife management, or rather hunting. This created the need to search for and analyse former sustainable use of the forests. Furthermore, the consideration of the use of trees/treelines is under the scope of helping the climate adaptation of arable fields. Wooded grasslands have also been mapped and various analyses were done, related to their survival. We wish to introduce some of the ancestral forms of the agricultural use of Hungarian farming, where trees play an important role, their origin, distribution, threatening factors, and their future. Sustainable arable farming systems with trees, including wood-pastures; orchard grasslands and conventional, organic, and permaculture horticultural farms with various proportion of tree cover, will be described.

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Farming systems with differing intensities have various impacts on soil biota. The objective of our study was to assess the effects of different farm types (conventional, organic and permaculture) and soil characteristics on earthworm populations. The main consideration was that scientific knowledge on permaculture farms in regards to soil fauna is missing. According to our hypothesis permaculture farms provide the most ideal conditions for earthworms. Fifteen micro-farms (0.3–2 ha) with similar agro-ecological features were selected for comparison in the North-Central part of Hungary. These were all horticultural farms with diverse crop rotations. The basic difference was the intensity of the farming activities. Earthworms were sampled in May and September (2020) with six replicates on each farm (90 samples in total). Earthworms found in the 25×25×25 cm soil blocks were hand-sorted. Five soil samples from each site were analysed for texture, pH, soil organic matter, macro- and micronutrient content in September (2020). Seven endogeic and three epigeic earthworm species were detected. In September species numbers were higher, in the average of the earthworm species number and Shannon diversity there were lower differences, a stronger positive relationship was found between CaCO 3 content and earthworm abundance, adult earthworm average was strongly and positively affected by magnesium content. Earthworm species number was significantly higher in permaculture farms while earthworm abundance was also significantly higher but only in May. This partly validates our zero hypotheses that permaculture farms have the best performance in providing good conditions for earthworm populations.

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