Global Soil Organic Carbon Stocks in Natural and Urban Ecosystems

In recent years, sequestering elevated atmospheric carbon has become a central strategy to mitigate the impacts of climate change. While it still remains challenging for humans to reduce carbon emissions and meet carbon neutrality under the pressure of increasing global population and urbanization, a deeper understanding of global carbon sinks will inform future environmental policy.

In terrestrial environments, soil is the largest organic carbon sink and offers the greatest opportunity to mitigate the global carbon imbalance. Soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks, or SOC storage, originate in detritus and organic compounds released from plant roots; these compounds effectively store the carbon that plants absorb from the atmosphere. However, the capacity for soil to store carbon varies across climatic conditions and among vegetated biomes. The extent of soil carbon stored in urban environments remains largely unknown.

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Their research not only provides a useful reference for future natural resource management and urban design, but it also highlights the importance of urban SOC storage to managing global soil carbon budgets.

This research is also being written into a blog in the website of Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative (GSBI), and the work will be published in the beginning of 2022.