Organic carbon stocks and management strategies of the soils in Taiwan based on the soil information system
Part Of
Soil Organic Matter: Ecology, Environmental Impact and Management
Pages
63-88
Start Page
63
End Page
88
ISBN (of the container)
9781621002727
ISBN
9781621002727
Date Issued
2012-01
Author(s)
Abstract
With the increasing concern over global climate change, it has become vital to quantify global and local soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks. In Taiwan, a total of 620 soil series for the rural soils and 69 soil series for the forest soils have been established, which may provide a clear scenario of a national scale SOC stock from the soil information system (SIS). The objective of this study was to investigate the SOC stocks and distribution in soils of Taiwan with different land uses by using SIS and digital soil mapping (DSM) from the soil survey database. The total areas of the rural soils and the forest soils are around 16830 km2 and 16770 km2, respectively. Inceptisols, Entisols, Alfisols and Ultisols are the major soil types in the rural soils, while Inceptisols and Entisols are the dominant in the forest soils. The average SOC stocks within 0-30 cm, 0-50 cm, and 0-100 cm depths were about 5.97, 8.06, and 11.0 kg m-2 in the rural soils, and 10.2, 13.8 and 18.5 kg m-2 in the forest soils, excluding Histosols and Spodosols. The SOC stocks were concentrated within 0-30 cm which were 54% in average in the rural soils and 59% in the forest soils of the total stocks in the 100 cm depth. Furthermore, the carbon pools are 162 Tg (tera grams, 1012 grams) in the rural soils and 160 Tg in the forest soils. Additionally, land use gives clear impacts on the SOC stocks. The SOC stocks of forest soils were the highest (9.30-41.9 kg m-2), followed by paddy soils (14.8- 20.0 kg m-2). However, the SOC stocks of grass soils (14.3 kg m-2) were slightly lower than those of the both soils above-mentioned, and the lowest SOC stocks were found in the upland cropping soils (9.12-12.5 kg m-2). A linear and positive correlation was found between the SOC stocks and soil ages in the rural soils, especially for SOC stocks at fluvial terraces with Entisols, Inceptisols, and Ultisols. The SOC stocks significantly increased with increasing the elevation but with decreasing the air temperature in the forest soils (p< 0.01). Regarding the management strategies for C sequestration, prolonging waterlogged duration of paddy soils and recycling crop residues are proposed as good ways to sequester SOC in the rural soils; moreover, thinning and reforestation timing after forest fire are needed to be noticed for C sequestration in the forest soils. The case study of reforestation at different time after forest fire suggested that reforestation treatment immediately after forest fire sequestrated more C in soils than the control treatment.
Subjects
Forest soils
Land uses
Rural soils
Soil carbon sequestration
Soil carbon stocks
Soil information system (SIS)
Soil organic carbon (SOC)
Publisher
Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Type
book part