Soil Carbon: a Critical Natural Resource – Wide-scale Goals, Urgent Actions - Soil Carbon: Science, Management and Policy for Multiple Benefits - page 17

(Chappell and LaValle, 2011), and the clear-
ance of native vegetation or drainage of
peatlands for biomass fuel production, which
also led to losses of biodiversity, water qual-
ity and quantity and contributed to climate
changes through significant release of CO 2
to the atmosphere (Bessou et al ., 2011).
Focusing land management towards a range
of benefits rather than one single benefit (as
is often done) is a way forward in minimiz-
ing trade-offs and maximizing synergies. It is
also proposed that losses in SOC have in-
creased the vulnerability of these services to
climate change (Reilly and Willenbockel,
2010; Don et al ., 2012). Thus, restoring, in-
creasing or protecting SOC could play a
major role in buffering ecosystem goods and
services in the future.
One view of interactions is that each
essential service has an optimal operational
range of SOC ( Fig. 2.3 ). For example, while food
production can, and continues to, operate at
relatively low levels of SOC, there is a gen-
eral hierarchy with other services requiring

higher levels of SOC to be maintained ef-
fectively and for people to reap the benefits.
The window for sustainable livelihoods is
defined as the optimum range of C stocks
that are adequate to supply all essential ser-
vices. Currently, we are operating at SOC
levels far below these windows, as demon-
strated by global losses of biodiversity and
problems with water quality and quantity
(Powlson et al ., 2011). The boundaries to
these operational limits will vary at the local
scale but ultimately are tied by the global
potential to store SOC. As the current stock
of SOC is below the optimal stock from a
societal perspective ( Fig. 2.3 ) , managing
soils for multiple services implies working
towards levels of SOC that will allow all
services to be delivered adequately.
Interactions between services occur
at multiple spatial scales, from local (e.g.
farm) through landscape (e.g. catchment) to
subnational, national and global scales.
The inducement of most interactions takes
place at farm and catchment scales, where

WINDOW FOR
SUSTAINABLE
LIVELIHOODS

N

BIODIVERSITY

CLIMATE REGULATION

WATER PROVISION

ENERGY PROVISION

FOOD PROVISION

0

Stock of soil carbon

Operational limits for
essential services

Fig. 2.3. Conceptual representation of operational ranges of essential ecosystem services in relation to
SOC stocks.