Research on Storage of Organic and Inorganic Carbon in Soil Profile from Forest to Desert Made Progress

Understanding the distribution of organic and inorganic carbon storage in soil profile is crucial for assessing regional, continental and global soil C stores and predicting the consequences of global change. However, little is known about the organic and inorganic carbon storages in deep soil layers at various landscapes.

Dr. Yugang WANG, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese of Academy of Sciences, measured the soil organic and inorganic carbon storage in soil profiles of 0–3 m at 5 sites of natural landscape from forest to desert. The results showed that soil organic carbon content and root biomass at the 0–3 m soil profile considerably decrease when landscape varied from forest to desert along a precipitation gradient, while soil inorganic carbon content increased significantly along the precipitation gradient. In landscapes other than forest, more than 50% soil carbon storage was found in 1–3 m depth. For grassland and shrub–grassland, the contribution from 1–3 m was mainly in the form of organic carbon, while for shrub desert and desert the contribution from this depth was mainly in the form of inorganic carbon. The comparison of soil C storage between top 0–1 m and 1–3 m showed that the using top 1 m of soil profile to estimate soil carbon storages would considerably underestimate soil carbon storage. This is especially true for organic soil carbon at grassland region, and for soil inorganic carbon at desert region.

  The result had been published on the Science of the Total Environment, 2010, 408: 1925-1931. Doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2010.01.015.

Figure 1 The vertical distribution of SOC content in the soil profile of different landscapes