Paper: “Increasing Soil Organic Carbon to Mitigate Greenhouse Gases and Increase Climate Resiliency for California,” California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment, California Natural Resources Agency. Publication number: CCCA4-CNRA-2018-006.
Research Team: Flint, L., Flint, A., Stern, M., Mayer, A., Vergara, S., Silver, W., Casey, F., Franco, F., Byrd, K., Sleeter, B., Alvarez, P., Creque, J., Estrada, T., Cameron, D. (U.S. Geological Survey).
Findings: Study results indicate that a one-time ¼” application of compost to rangelands can lead to carbon sequestration rates in soils that are maximized after approximately 15 years, and more than offset greenhouse gas emissions stimulated by the compost addition for at least five decades longer. Modeled increases in total soil organic matter of 3% enhanced hydrologic benefits across 97% of working lands, and reduced climate change impacts. Economic valuation indicated all benefits increasing over time, demonstrating a large potential for the California carbon market to support incentives in regionalizing the impacts in the coming decades. Socioeconomic and related land use pressures pose barriers to implementing management practices to increase soil organic matter by driving conversion of rangeland to urban or to more greenhouse-gas emission intensive agriculture. Results can be effectively used with land use change scenarios to identify where on California’s working lands hydrologic benefits of soil organic matter enhancement coincide with development risk, highlighting counties in California in which there may be resilience to climate change when strategic soil management and land conservation are combined.
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