Temperature effect on erosion-induced disturbances to soil organic carbon cycling

Erosion exerts control on soil organic carbon (SOC) and both erosion and SOC are affected by climate. To what extent temperature controls the coupling between these erosion–C interactions remains unclear. Using 137Cs and SOC inventories from catchments spanning different climates, we find that incre...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Wang, Zhengang, Zhang,Yizhe, Govers, Gerard, Tang, Guoping, Quine, Timothy A., Qiu, Jianxiu, Navas Izquierdo, Ana, Fang, Haiyan, Tan, Qian, Van Oost, Kristof
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2023
Country:España
Institution:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repository:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/304507
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/304507
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:http://metadata.un.org/sdg/13
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
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Summary:Erosion exerts control on soil organic carbon (SOC) and both erosion and SOC are affected by climate. To what extent temperature controls the coupling between these erosion–C interactions remains unclear. Using 137Cs and SOC inventories from catchments spanning different climates, we find that increasing decomposition rates with temperature result in the efficient replacement of SOC laterally lost by erosion in eroding areas but lower preservation of deposited SOC in depositional areas. When combined at the landscape level, the erosion-induced C sink strength per unit lateral SOC flux increases with temperature from 0.19 g C (g C)−1 at 0 °C to 0.24 g C (g C)−1 at 25 °C. We estimated that the global C sink of 0.050 Pg C yr−1 induced by water erosion on croplands increases by 7% because of climate change. Our results reveal a negative feedback loop between climate change and erosion-induced disturbance to SOC cycling.