11/06/04

Storing carbon in soil can limit climate change

We encourage you to republish this article online and in print, it’s free under our creative commons attribution license, but please follow some simple guidelines:

You have to credit our authors.
You have to credit SciDev.Net — where possible include our logo with a link back to the original article.
You can simply run the first few lines of the article and then add: “Read the full article on SciDev.Net” containing a link back to the original article.
If you want to also take images published in this story you will need to confirm with the original source if you're licensed to use them.
The easiest way to get the article on your site is to embed the code below.

For more information view our media page and republishing guidelines.

The full article is available here as HTML.

Press Ctrl-C to copy

<div class="article-wrap">
<div id="article-introduction">
<h1>Storing carbon in soil can limit climate change</h1>
<h4></h4>
</div>
<br />
<br />

<div id="article-body">
<p>Tens of billions of tonnes of carbon formerly trapped in soil have been lost to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide since the mechanisation of agriculture began a few hundred years ago. Restoring this lost carbon could help limit climate change and improve food security.</p>
<p>A lack of carbon makes crop production inefficient, says Rattan Lal, director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Centre at Ohio State University. And depletion of soil carbon is particularly problematic in sub-Saharan Africa, south and central Asia and Caribbean and Andean regions. He suggests management practices — such as use of compost and manure to fertilise crops — would increase soil carbon, allowing improved water and nutrient retention, and better yields.</p>
<p>At the same time, storing carbon in soil can offset fossil fuel emissions by five to 15 per cent each year. The amount of carbon potentially stored in soils is one billion tonnes — in climate change mitigation terms, the equivalent of global renewable energy production in 2001.</p>
<p><a onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/tracking/external/'+this.href);" target="_blank" href="/sci.cfm?redir=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/304/5677/1623?ijkey=omxHYAGIpbjtI&keytype=ref&siteid=sci" rel="noopener noreferrer">Link to full viewpoint article in <em>Science</em></a></p>
<p>Reference <em>Science</em> 304, 1623 (2004)</p>

</div>
<div class="quick-links-wrapper">
<h3>You might also like</h3>
[related-articles]
</div>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="https://www.scidev.net" target="_blank">SciDev.Net</a>. Read the <a href="https://www.scidev.net/global/opinions/storing-carbon-in-soil-can-limit-climate-change/" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
<script type="text/javascript">
(function(e,t,n,r,i,s,o){e["GoogleAnalyticsObject"]=i;e[i]=e[i]||function(){(e[i].q=e[i].q||[]).push(arguments)},e[i].l=1*new Date;s=t.createElement(n),o=t.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];s.async=1;s.src=r;o.parentNode.insertBefore(s,o)})(window,document,"script","//www.google-analytics.com/ga.js","ga");var _gaq=_gaq||[];var _gaq=_gaq||[];_gaq.push(["_setAccount","UA-3223906-8"],["_trackEvent","article interaction","republished","https://www.scidev.net/global/opinions/storing-carbon-in-soil-can-limit-climate-change/",null,true])
</script>
</div>

Tens of billions of tonnes of carbon formerly trapped in soil have been lost to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide since the mechanisation of agriculture began a few hundred years ago. Restoring this lost carbon could help limit climate change and improve food security.

A lack of carbon makes crop production inefficient, says Rattan Lal, director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Centre at Ohio State University. And depletion of soil carbon is particularly problematic in sub-Saharan Africa, south and central Asia and Caribbean and Andean regions. He suggests management practices — such as use of compost and manure to fertilise crops — would increase soil carbon, allowing improved water and nutrient retention, and better yields.

At the same time, storing carbon in soil can offset fossil fuel emissions by five to 15 per cent each year. The amount of carbon potentially stored in soils is one billion tonnes — in climate change mitigation terms, the equivalent of global renewable energy production in 2001.

Link to full viewpoint article in Science

Reference Science 304, 1623 (2004)