Cl, a new tool to assess soil carbon dynamics.

Soil organic carbon is one of the largest surface pools of carbon that humans can manage in order to partially mitigate annual anthropogenic CO emissions. A significant element to assess soil sequestration potential is the carbon age, which is evaluated by modelling or experimentally using carbon isotopes. Results, however, are not consistent.

Barriers and opportunities of soil knowledge to address soil challenges: Stakeholders' perspectives across Europe.

Climate-smart sustainable management of agricultural soil is critical to improve soil health, enhance food and water security, contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation, biodiversity preservation, and improve human health and wellbeing. The European Joint Programme for Soil (EJP SOIL) started in 2020 with the aim to significantly improve soil management knowledge and create a sustainable and integrated European soil research system. EJP SOIL involves more than 350 scientists across 24 Countries and has been addressing multiple aspects associated with soil management across different European agroecosystems.

Including Stable Carbon Isotopes to Evaluate the Dynamics of Soil Carbon in the Land-Surface Model ORCHIDEE.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a crucial component of the terrestrial carbon cycle and its turnover time in models is a key source of uncertainty. Studies have highlighted the utility of δC measurements for benchmarking SOC turnover in global models. We used C as a tracer within a vertically discretized soil module of a land-surface model, Organising Carbon and Hydrology In Dynamic Ecosystems- Soil Organic Matter (ORCHIDEE-SOM).

Atmosphere-soil carbon transfer as a function of soil depth.

The exchange of carbon between soil organic carbon (SOC) and the atmosphere affects the climate and-because of the importance of organic matter to soil fertility-agricultural productivity. The dynamics of topsoil carbon has been relatively well quantified, but half of the soil carbon is located in deeper soil layers (below 30 centimetres), and many questions remain regarding the exchange of this deep carbon with the atmosphere. This knowledge gap restricts soil carbon management policies and limits global carbon models.

Evaluating SoilGen2 as a tool for projecting soil evolution induced by global change.

To protect soils against threats, it is necessary to predict the consequences of human activities and global change on their evolution on a ten to hundred year time scale. Mechanistic modelling of soil evolution is then a useful tool. We analysed the ability of the SoilGen model to be used for projections of soil characteristics associated to various soil threats: vertical distributions of <2μm fraction, organic carbon content (OC), bulk density and pH.

A snapshot of soil water composition as an indicator of contrasted redox environments in a hedged farmland plot.

While soil water composition has long been recognised as being related to soil type (characteristics of the horizons), the influence of structures resulting from agricultural activities (hedges, ditches, wheel ruts, etc) is still under discussion. This work was undertaken to show that a snapshot of spatial variability of the geochemical characteristics of soil water at the scale of a plot can improve our understanding of soil geochemistry in a farmland setting. We selected a 3 hectare hedged plot located on a hillside, limited by a stream and used as pasture where soils have developed in weathered gneiss.