Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
23
Managing Soil Carbon for Multiple
Ecosystem Benefits - Positive Exemplars:
Latin America (Brazil and Argentina)
Carlos Eduardo P. Cerri*, Newton La Scala Jr, Reynaldo
Luiz Victoria, Alberto Quiroga and Elke Noellemeyer
Abstract
Agriculture provides food, fibre and energy, which have been the foundation for the development of
all societies. Soil carbon plays an important role in providing essential ecosystem services. Historic-
ally, these have been viewed in terms of plant nutrient availability only, with agricultural management
being driven to obtain maximum benefits of this soil function. However, recently, agricultural systems
have been envisioned to provide a more complete set of ecosystem services, in a win-win situation, in
addition to the products normally associated with agriculture. The expansion and growth of agricul-
tural production in Brazil and Argentina brought about a significant loss of soil carbon stocks, and
consequently the associated ecosystem services, such as flooding and erosion control, water filtration
and storage. There are several examples of soil carbon management for multiple benefits in Brazil and
Argentina, with new soil management techniques attempting to reverse this trend by increasing soil
carbon (C) stocks. One example is zero tillage, which has the advantage of reducing CO
2
emissions
from the soil and thus preserving or augmenting C stocks. Crop rotations that include cover crops have
been shown to sequester significant amounts of C, both in Brazilian subtropical regions as well as in
the Argentinean Pampas. Associated benefits of zero tillage and cover crop rotations include flood and
erosion control and improved water filtration and storage. Another positive example is the adoption of
no-burning harvest in the vast sugarcane area in Brazil, which also contributes to reduced CO
2
emis-
sions, leaving crop residues on the soil surface and thus helping the conservation of essential plant
nutrients and improving water storage.
Introduction
models that allow us to extrapolate those
services on spatial and temporal scales, are
the fundamentals for accounting the exter-
nalities associated with ecosystems. Once
one ecosystem is replaced by another, the
disservices can also be quantified in eco-
nomical terms and according to their
market price; this could make an important
The concept of ecosystem services has been
cited as a major issue, and it has been possible
to quantify services related to air quality,
hydrological cycles, watershed protection
and biodiversity, among others. New evalu-
ation techniques, as well as the adoption of
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