Carbon Soil Storage and Technologies to Increase Soil Carbon Stocks in the South American Savanna

Abstract

The expansion of the agricultural frontiers that occurred in the last decades in the South American savanna (Cerrado), the second-largest biome in Brazil (covering an area of 204 million hectares), has accounted for a substantial portion of South America’s CO2 emissions. In this context, our research investigated the potential for soil carbon storage in the biome. The analysis of previous data (n = 197) shows a vertical distribution pattern of soil carbon stock: 26.17% for the upper 0–30 cm layer, 37.67% for the 30–100 cm layer, and 36.15% for the 100–200 cm layer. The total soil carbon storage for the biome is 13.5 ± 6.7 gigatons (n = 71) for the upper 0–30 cm layer, 30.5 ± 18.9 Gt (n = 64) for the 0–100 cm layer, and 47.8 ± 4.3 (n = 9) for the 0–200 cm layer. The results indicate that the soil carbon stock up to 1 m deep in the Cerrado ranges from 0.5% to 2.29% of the global soil organic carbon storage for this depth. Further research is necessary to investigate what happens at a depth of at least 2 m. The results also indicate that the soil under pasture lands constitutes the largest manageable pool for increasing soil carbon stocks via the restoration of degraded pastures.

Carbon cycle of native pasture-based beef cattle production systems in the Pantanal area of the Paraguayan Chaco

“…The carbon stock recorded in a pastoral system by Castellano et al (2022) in the soil layer of 020 cm (51 %) was lower compared to the sum obtained from this study for that depth, although in the layer of 2040 cm (30.1 %) they reported higher value, as also for the depth of 4060 cm (66.2 %). The results obtained in this experiment are lower than those reported by Marques and Cely (2013) who performed studies in non intervened areas and recuperation areas of the Paramo de la Contadera, Colombia, where they found a mean of 81.36 Ton SOC.ha 1 and for intervened areas, a mean of 15.18 Ton SOC.ha 1 , a lower result to the general mean obtained in this study which was of 67 Ton SOC.ha 1 until 80 cm of evaluated depth.…”

Spatio-temporal variation and future multi-scenario simulation of carbon storage in Bailong River Basin using GeoSOS-FLUS and InVEST models

“…Numerous studies have been conducted on C stock changes in single terrestrial ecosystems ), such as woodland, farmland, grassland, etc. There has been a focus on C stocks within forests (Mumcu Kucuker 2020; Tian et al 2022), at forest edges and in soil (Meeussen et al 2021;Remy et al 2016) and within single ecosystems (Castellano et al 2022; L.…”