JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE

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DETECTION OF THE CHANGES OF ORGANIC CARBON STOCK
IN MINERAL SOILS
Vladimir Stolbovoy, Luca Montanarella, Nicola
Filippi, Senthil-Kumar Selvaradjou and Javier
Gallego
SCAPE workshop The Importance of Soil Protection
and Conservation in the Boreal Climate Zone
Åss, Norway, 9-11 May 2005
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Path through presentation

• Organic carbon in soil
• Soil and the Kyoto Protocol
• IPCC Good Practice Guidance for Land Use Land Use
  Change and Forestry
• Soil sampling for the carbon change detection
• Progress on the Soil Sampling Protocol to Certify
  the Changes of Organic Carbon Stock in Mineral
  Soils of European Union

Stolbovoy et al., SCAPE workshop, Norway, 2005.
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• UNIVERSAL SOIL QUALITY INDICATOR
• Towards a Thematic strategy for Soil Protection
  (SORCE COMMUNICATION 2002, 179)
• Driver of soil functions
• Food and other biomass production
• Storing, filtering and transformation
• Habitat and gene pool
• Physical and cultural environment for humankind
• Source of raw materials
• Indicator of soil threats
• Erosion
• Decline in organic matter
• Soil contamination (local and diffuse)
• Soil sealing
• Soil compaction
• Decline in soil biodiversity

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Soil in Global Carbon Cycle

• Second large global C pool 2000 Gt C (in
  comparison ocean 39 000 Gt C atmosphere 760
  Gt C vegetation 500 Gt C)
• Long-term storage 1102-103 (in comparison
  litter 1-10 yr, vegetation 1102 yr)
• Annual heterotrophic respiration 10 of CO2
  content in the atmosphere

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Articles 3.33.4 of the Kyoto Protocol (Source
UNFCCC, 1998)
3. The net changes in greenhouse gas emissions
by sources and removals by sinks resulting from
direct human-induced land-use change and forestry
activities, limited to afforestation,
reforestation and deforestation since 1990,
measured as verifiable changes in carbon stocks
in each commitment period, shall be used to meet
the commitments under this Article of each Party
included in Annex I. The greenhouse gas emissions
by sources and removals by sinks associated with
those activities shall be reported in a
transparent and verifiable manner and reviewed in
accordance with Articles 7 and 8. 4. Prior to the
first session of the Conference of the Parties
serving as the meeting of the Parties to this
Protocol, each Party included in Annex I shall
provide, for consideration by the Subsidiary Body
for Scientific and Technological Advice, data to
establish its level of carbon stocks in 1990 and
to enable an estimate to be made of its changes
in carbon stocks in subsequent years. The
Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting
of the Parties to this Protocol shall, at its
first session or as soon as practicable
thereafter, decide upon modalities, rules and
guidelines as to how, and which, additional
human-induced activities related to changes in
greenhouse gas emissions by sources and removals
by sinks in the agricultural soils and the
land-use change and forestry categories shall be
added to, or subtracted from, the assigned
amounts for Parties included in Annex I, taking
into account uncertainties, transparency in
reporting, verifiability, the methodological work
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
the advice provided by the Subsidiary Body for
Scientific and Technological Advice in accordance
with Article 5 and the decisions of the
Conference of the Parties. Such a decision shall
apply in the second and subsequent commitment
periods. A Party may choose to apply such a
decision on these additional human-induced
activities for its first commitment period,
provided that these activities have taken place
since 1990.
changes in greenhouse gas emissions by sources
and removals by sinks resulting from direct
human-induced land-use change and forestry
activities, limited to afforestation,
reforestation and deforestation since 1990
changes in greenhouse gas emissions by sources
and removals by sinks in the agricultural soils
and the land-use change and forestry
Stolbovoy et al., SCAPE workshop, Norway, 2005.
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Carbon density in 0-30 cm by land use patterns in
Russia (Source Stolbovoi, 2000)
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IPCC (2000)
Special Report on Land Use, Land-use Change
Forestry is a concerted attempt to examine the
feasibility and implications of implementing
the Kyoto Protocol
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IPCC (2003)
GPG-LULUCF provides methods and good practice
guidance for estimating, measuring, monitoring
and reporting on carbon stock changes from LULUCF
activities.
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Information on soil can be obtained by
observation of soil fraction or samples. Result
depends on the sampling.
CONCLUSION Kyoto soil is over simplified and too
heterogeneous
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Over simplification questions soil applicability
Based on Post et al., 2001 Watson et al., 2000.
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Carbon sequestration potential of European
agricultural soils
During the first Kyoto commitment period
(2008-2012), agricultural soils in EU-15 can
sequester up to 1619 Mt C year-1 which is
equivalent to 2 of European anthropogenic
emissions (Freibauer et al., 2004).
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To improve Good Practice Guidance for LULUCF
Weaknesses of the GPG
Targets

• Too global orientation on GHG inventory and
  reporting
• Flexibility of the localization of the soil
  sampling, lack of pan-European consistency
• Over simplified model of soil, e.g., (0-30 cm)
  for all soils
• Oversampling, too expensive
• Lack of recommendations on the practical field
  sampling

• Focus on practical sampling in field plots and
  forests
• Unification of the sampling localization
  avoidance of projects inconsistency
• Pedological substantialization of the sampling
• Composite samples, reduce laboratory costs
• Provide with relevant sampling procedure

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Standard and norms

• ISO/FDIS 10381-12002(E)) and particularly
  relevant to ISO 10381-4 devoted to Sampling to
  support legal or regulatory action
• Consistent with IPCC LULUCFs good practical
  guidance (IPCC, 2003, p.1.6)

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Template with random localization of sampling
sites
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Localization, quantity and composition

• Technical data
• Standard template with random numeration of
  sampling sites and the
  flexible dimensions to fit the field area
• 1 composite sample (from 25 points) for the
  sampling site
• dependence of the sample sites number on the
  field area
• instrumentally fixed area of the field with
  geopositioning of sample sites in European CRS
  with the precision of 10m

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Progress and the follow up steps

• Technical Report is completed
• Reviewing by stakeholders, e.g. European Soil
  Bureau Network, Horizontal project, etc.
• Testing on selected areas, ECALP, demonstration
  project on Forests
• Submission of the TR to European Commission and
  Executive Board of the UNFCCC in Bonn

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Thank you
Stolbovoy et al., SCAPE workshop, Norway, 2005.