Soil Carbon Science, Management and Policy for Multiple Benefits

About this book

Covers the broad science and policy background, and includes describing land management options that improve the soil carbon status and hence increasing the benefits that humans derive worldwide from the environment. The different chapters are succinct accounts of the state of knowledge, written by renowned experts from different disciplines and who work in different environments around the world. This is the first comprehensive volume on soil carbon that addresses the full range of commercial and environmental benefits of improved soil carbon management.

Contents

I: Foreword
II: Acknowledgements
III: Executive Summary

Part I: Introduction, Overview and Integration
1: The global challenge for soil carbon
2: Soil carbon, a critical natural resource: Wide-scale goals, urgent actions
3: Soil carbon transition curves: reversal of land degradation through management of soil organic matter for multiple benefits
4: From potential to implementation: An innovation framework to realise the benefits of soil carbon
5: A strategy for taking soil carbon into the policy arena

Part II: Soil Carbon in Earth’s Life Support System
6: Soil formation
7: Soil carbon dynamics and nutrient cycling
8: Soil hydrology and reactive transport of carbon and nitrogen in a multi-scale landscape

Part III: The Multiple Benefits of Soil Carbon
9: Climate change mitigation
10: Soil carbon and agricultural productivity: Perspectives from sub-Saharan Africa
11: Soil as a support of biodiversity and functions
12: Water supply and quality
13: Wind erosion of agricultural soils and the carbon cycle
14: Historical and sociocultural aspects of soil organic matter and soil organic carbon benefits
15: The economic value of soil carbon

Part IV: Quantification and Reporting of Soil Carbon
16: Measuring and monitoring soil carbon
17: Modelling soil carbon
18: Valuation approaches for soil carbon

Part V: Influence of Human Activity on Soil Carbon
19: Current soil carbon loss and land degradation globally: Where are the hotspots and why there?
20: Climate change and soil carbon impacts
21: Impacts of land-use change on carbon stocks and dynamics in central-southern South American biomes: Cerrado, Atlantic forest and southern grasslands.

Part VI: Managing Soil Carbon for Multiple Benefits
22: Basic principles of soil carbon management for multiple ecosystem benefits
23: Managing soil carbon for multiple ecosystems benefits: positive exemplars – Latin America
24: Managing soil carbon for multiple benefits: positive exemplars - North America
25: Managing soil carbon in Europe: paludicultures as a new perspective for peatlands
26: Managing soil organic carbon for multiple benefits: The case of Africa
27: Benefits of SOM in agro-ecosystems: A case of China
28: Assessment of organic carbon status in Indian soils

Part VII: Governance of Soil Carbon
29: Policy frameworks
30: National implementation case study: China
31: Avoided land degradation and enhanced soil C storage: Is there a role for carbon markets?

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