Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
CLIMSOIL report it is estimated that more
than
65,000
km
2
or 20% of all peatlands
have been drained for agriculture, almost
90,000
km
2
or 28% for forestry and 2273 km
2
or 0.7% for peat extraction.
The lack of availability of reliable data
on the area of peat soils in agricultural use
and whether it is grassland or arable land is
caused primarily by land-use changes and
degradation of peat soils that have turned
into mineral soils following oxidation of the
peat (EC, 2008b). The large amount of C
stored in peatland justifies a prominent
place of this specific landform in the Euro-
pean climate change debate. The result is
that the most effective option to manage soil
C is to preserve the existing rich stocks of
OM in peat soils. Peatlands degradation and
drainage, due to climate change and land
management, has become a relevant con-
cern because of the deleterious effects on
this specific ecosystem and the associated
GHG release (CO
2
, N
2
O and CH
4
).
Virgin peatlands, called
mires
, accumu-
late atmospheric C and N
2
O, but emit CH
4
(Jandl
et al
., 2011). The extensive intact
European mires are still functioning as
sinks for C. For this reason, a main goal for
Europe is to monitor these organic soils and
plan their effective protection. The difficul-
ties are mainly in collecting data on land
use in peatlands, and particularly on their
drainage status for forestry and agriculture.
The debate about the temperature sensitiv-
ity of SOC decomposition should be broad-
ened specifically to include peatlands. Be-
cause of their high sensitivity to temperature
changes, during the next few decades these
lands may mobilize large stocks of C. For
this reason, high research priority should be
given to decomposition constraints in these
environments and their feedbacks with cli-
mate (Davidson and Janssens, 2006).
Conclusions
Policymakers recognize SOC as relevant for
several policy areas: climate change, agri-
culture, environmental protection, waste
management, biodiversity, energy, etc. There
is no single framework addressing SOC at
the global or regional scale. Existing multi-
lateral environmental agreements (MEAs)
address SOC from different perspectives.
There is clear need for a more coordinated
and coherent approach to SOC management
and related policies. The recently proposed
GSP by the FAO has the potential to allow
for voluntary coordination on SOC manage-
ment at the global scale. Nevertheless, with-
out proper financial incentives, it will be
difficult to implement an effective SOC
management policy at the local scale.
Within the EU, there could be scope for the
introduction of an effective incentive sys-
tem, but it will require a reliable monitor-
ing, verification and reporting system at the
farm level. Given the current cost associated
with effective SOC measurements
in situ
, it
may be difficult to implement such a system
at the continental scale. A more realistic ap-
proach could be to consider land-use
changes and the related effects on SOC
levels through a series of standardized con-
version factors, potentially derived locally
from a network of benchmark sites. Some
ongoing projects could lead in the long term
to the establishment of such a network of
reference sites for the European Union.
Notes
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