Verification of carbon management measures in mineral soils of the European Union

Transcription

1 Verification of carbon management measures in mineral soils of the European Union Stolbovoy Vladimir, Luca Montanarella and Nicola Filippi Land Management and Natural Hazards Unit, Joint Research Center EC, Ispra, Italy GCP International Conference on Carbon Management at Urban and Regional Levels: Connecting Development Decisions to Global Issues Mexico, September 4-8,

2 What is the Joint Research Centre? The JRC is a Directorate General of the European Commission European Commission 25 Commissioners CCR DG RECHERCHE DG BUDGET DG AGRICULTURE DG Mr Janez POTOČNIK European Commissioner for Research DG RESEARCH DG JRC DG ENVIRONMENT OTHER DGs 2

3 What is Joint Research Centre mission? The mission of the JRC is to provide customerdriven scientific and technical support for the conception, development, implementation and monitoring of EU policies. As a service of the European Commission, the JRC functions as a reference centre of science and technology for the Union. Close to the policy-making process, it serves the common interest of the Member States, while being independent of special interests, whether private or national. 3

4 The organization of the Joint Research Centre Total Staff Budget: 300M Euro/y 7 Institutes in 5 Member States: IE - Petten The Netherlands - Institute for Energy IRMM - Geel Belgium - Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements ITU - Karlsruhe Germany - Institute for Transuranium elements IPSC - IHCP - IES -IspraItaly - Institute for the Protection and the Security of the Citizen - Institute for Health and Consumer Protection - Institute for Environment and Sustainability IPTS - Seville Spain - Institute for Prospective Technological Studies 4

5 Is soil carbon an issue for European Union? EU Policy: Upcoming Directive on Thematic strategy for Soil Protection, based on EC COMMUNICATION (2002, 179)) Carbon is a 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 Carbon is an indicator of soil threats: Decline in organic matter Erosion Soil compaction Salinisation Landslides 5

6 Soil carbon is central in RIO conventions Climate Change SOIL ORGANIC CARBON CBD Biodiversity UNCCD Desertification 6

7 Soil appearance in the Kyoto? LULUCF (IPCC, 2000) repot provides scientific background of implementing soil in line with the Kyoto Protocol GPG-LULUCF (IPCC, 2003) contains recommendations for estimating, measuring, monitoring and reporting on carbon stock changes in soil from LULUCF activities. 7

8 Think globally and locally Source: IPCC,2003 Soil in IPCC: (1) ignore heterogeneity, e.g. 3 sample points per 100 ha; oversimplify and over sample, e.g. topsoil layer and one sample for every 10-cm layer. 8

9 Can Global Establishing thinking the Kyoto be implemented Soil at field level? Kyoto soil 0-30 Cropland Forest Pasture Unfortunately not: too heterogeneous, difficult to verify and highly uncertain. 9

10 Dilemma: what soil sampling to take? Task to define: SOC stock = ( SOCrefstock SOCnewstock ) ± s( SOCstock ) A. Simple random sampling Random layout Systematic layout Number of samples (P0.05) 1000 Number of samples 100 SOC content (0-30 cm) 50 tc/ha 75 tc/ha 100 tc/ha Variability (CV), % B. Composite sampling (A) Advantage - statistically sound; Disadvantage resources demanding, high cost, impractical. (B) Advantage simple, low cost, practical; Disadvantage unknown accuracy. 10

11 MaxAxis Area-Frame Randomized Soil Sampling (AFRSS) takes advantages Sampling site (m) Selected sampling site (first sampling) Selected sampling site (second sampling)

12 Programming of sampling strategy 12

13 Pasture Cropland Forest 13 cm Subsoil horizon Subsoil horizon Subsoil horizon Sampling depths Plough horizon Mineral horizon Organi c layer Minimization of sampling depths Source: Stolbovoy et al., 2005

14 Practical precision/reproducibility (cropland (Piemonte), first and second samplings) Profile, N Depth, cm C, % Bulk density, g/cm3 Soil carbon density, kgc/m3 Carbon content for profile, tc/ha Soil carbon stock, tc (area 4 ha) Average soil carbon stock, tc (area 4 ha) Reproducibili ty, % Cropland Skeletic Cambisol, first sampling C1S n.a.* C22S n.a C8S n.a Cropland Skeletic Cambisol, second sampling 3 C1Ss n.a. C22Ss n.a. C8Ss n.a n.a Source: Stolbovoy et al.,

15 Economic effectiveness of AFRSS (The average C sequestration is 6tC for the control (4ha) plot; the laboratory cost of the C detection 6-16 EURO for sample) Land cover Conventional (IPCC, 2003) Area-Frame Randomized Soil Sampling Variability, % Number of samples Cost per tc Variability, % Number of samples Cost per tc Cropland Pasture n.a n.a n.a. = not applicable Source: Stolbovoy et al.,

16 Lower cost for larger fields ( average carbon sink is 1.5 tc/ha; the cost of lab determination is 16 EURO per sample) Plot area, ha Euro/tC tc Euro Source: Stolbovoy et al.,

17 Conclusions There is a good signal to get practical method to verify the changes in organic carbon in mineral soils at the field level. The suggested Area-Frame Randomized Soil Sampling (AFRSS) combines advantages of composite sampling with randomized positioning of the sampling sites. The field test shows that the AFRSS assures practical precision/reproducibility within 3% of initial carbon stock, simplicity, transparency and low cost. The AFRSS allows easy programming/computation of the sampling strategy. 17

18 For reference visit 18

19 Thank you for your attention! 19