SOC and LOC is an important parameters to predict GHG emissions in soil, forest and reservoirs as wall.
Hello Amit,
The relation between soil organic carbon (both particulate and labile) with green house gas emission is significant. Usually soil can store 2-3times more carbon compared to what atmosphere can store. The organic carbon present in the soil, particularly the labile fraction can be metabolized by heterotrophic bacteria and can be converted in to CO2 and also CH4 (depending on the redox status of the soil). Specially in the the tropical warm and humid places like forest floors, the release of organic carbon from the soil as CO2 or CH4 can be quite high. However, if the labile fraction of organic carbon increases in the soil, it may enhance bacterial metabolism followed by enhanced green house gas emission. Carbon storage in the temperate and other cold areas can be longer due to low temperature and microbial activities relative to the warmer places. With increasing soil temperature due to global warming, the chances of releasing more CO2 in to the atmosphere is quite high which can act as a positive feedback and can further enhance atmospheric temperature. Please see the following article in Nature
Susan E. Trumbore and Ronald Amundson. Biogeochemistry: Soil warming and organic carbon contentNature 408, 789-790 (14 December 2000) | doi:10.1038/35048672, Eric A. Davidson,
Because greenhouse gas (CO2, CH4)) emission is the product of SOC decomposition or transformation. Especially for LOC, which is active part of SOC.
Dear ,
Fan Ding and Haimanti Biswas
I am asking about what is the uses of SOC/LOC w.r.t GHG emissions in point wise ....plz reread the question and kindly reply me
Hi Amit, the question you typed above does not show anywhere if you meant to get any numerical relation between GHG emission and soil organic carbon content. However, the question you typed second time tells " what is the uses of SOC/LOC w.r.t GHG emissions in pint wise" also not clear tome, do you mean "Point wise"?
Hi Amit,
I agree with Haimanti that your question is hard to interpret. Do you mean what are the roles of SOC and the labile fraction of the SOC for the net emissions of greenhouse gases?
If so then the net changes in carbon stock is what is important. Soil pools get new input from the growing biomass all the time, while existing SOC continuously is broken down. Depending on which factor is bigger the pool size will change. The direction of the change can lead to either CO2 emissions or reductions in the atmosphere.
In a system in equilibrium with no land use change (that is the same practices have been used for a long time) no big net changes normally take place. But any change in land use can make a big impact on the SOC and LOC pools. After an initial land use change the exisiting LOC fraction is rapidly broken down, which normally leads to an initial net emission of CO2 if the labile fraction has any considerable size. Even in systems which eventually will cause an increase in total SOC and a reduction of the atmospheric CO2.
Net changes in live biomass are pretty straightforward to calculate, but have nothing to do with SOC or labile carbon.
If this is not what you were asking for than just disregard the answer and try to be more specific please.
CO2 is the product of SOC mineralization. Usually,at the beggining, labile SOC starts to decompose in other SOC fractions with higher recalcitrance. But, at the same time, part of that SOC is mineralizated (transformed into (CO2) by microorganisms. So, the more labile SOC the soil has, the more proportion of SOC can be transformed into CO2.
Thus, it is very important, in the agriculture, to control as much as possible the dynamic of SOC in order to reduce the proportion of SOC which can be mineralizated. The SOC mineralization process is controlled by agricultural management (tillage...), soil properties (texture, geochemical properties...) and climate conditions (precipitation and temperature).
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