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| Biogeosciences Discuss., 6, 797-823, 2009 www.biogeosciences-discuss.net/6/797/2009/ doi:10.5194/bgd-6-797-2009 © Author(s) 2009. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Soil carbon stocks in ecoregions of Africa 1Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, IRD, UR SeqBio, SupAgro, Bat 12, 2 place Viala, 34060 Montpellier Cedex 1, France 2Laboratorio di Ecologia Forestale, Di.S.A.F.Ri. – Facoltà di Agraria, Università degli Studi della Tuscia, Via Camillo de Lellis, snc – 01100, Viterbo, Italy 3AgroParisTech – ENGREF, GEEFT, 648 rue Jean-François Breton, BP 7355, 34086 Montpellier Cedex 4, France |  |
The aim of the study is i) to assess the original soil C stocks (SOC) of Africa for the different countries and Ecoregions, and ii) to compare SOC estimates from different soil properties databases and digital maps. Four recent global digital soil maps and five soil properties databases were used to estimate the SOC for different soil layers in Africa. Those databases hold between 1799 and 4043 soil profiles which are considered to represent the soil units showed on a 0.5 by 0.5 degree soil maps of Africa.
SOC of Africa ranged 133 420–184 116 Tg for 0–100 cm soil layer. The most recent databases estimated 166 397 Tg C which corresponded to 9% of the global SOC stock and 68% of the terrestrial C pool of Africa. Average SOC ranges 0.4–8.2 kg m−2 at national scale and 1.53–6.61 kg m−2 for ecoregions. Using different soil database or spatial data leads to up to 30% of difference. These quantities indicate a great potential to develop sink activities through soil C sequestration activities.
Discussion Paper (PDF, 6616 KB) Interactive Discussion (Closed, 4 Comments) Publication in BG not foreseen
Citation: Henry, M., Valentini, R., and Bernoux, M.: Soil carbon stocks in ecoregions of Africa, Biogeosciences Discuss., 6, 797-823, doi:10.5194/bgd-6-797-2009, 2009. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager XML
