Global and European soil carbon fluxes from land use and land management change

• Main Author: Haft, Michael
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: University of Aberdeen 2007

One of the methods of mitigation against climate change is to offset CO2 emissions by using Carbon (C) sinks based on the Kyoto Protocol Articles 3.3 and 3.4 (UNFCCC 1997). One potential C sink is the terrestrial soil organic carbon (SOC) pool which can be affected by a wide variety of environmental factors across a range of time and spatial scales. Soil carbon models RothC, DNDC, Century and the IPCC method were assessed and compared to measured site data in order to determine accuracy. Simpler models such as RothC and the IPCC method were found to perform better [In the absence of abundant input data]. The uncertainty of these models was assessed and found to be +/-15% for the RothC model, +/-19% for the DNDC model and +/-26% for the Century model all with 95% confidence. Post-hoc application of mitigation factors were derived using the IPCC method to provide estimates of carbon mitigation potential. These were applied on a pan-European scale using projected land-use changes. The estimates were compared to trends simulated using an adapted regional scale version of the RothC model, which estimated that 3.1% (+/-0.5%) of the 8% Kyoto EU 15 emissions reduction target (from 1990 levels) could be achieved using these measures.