Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of the whole cropland category results to be 516.3 156.9 Tg C. This amount repre-
sents about 17 % of the total SOC estimated for the top 50 cm of soils of total surface
of Italy, which reports about 2,900 Tg C, thus indicating the importance to preserve
the large amount of SOC stored in cropland category. In conclusion, given the few
estimates available at European level, repeated SOC inventories aimed to define the
SOC content in cropland soils are important for future stock change evaluation.
8.1 Introduction
Cropland is among the major land use in Europe, occupying around 126.5 Mha in
the EU25 plus Norway and Switzerland (Janssens et al.
2005
), hence changes in the
size of the cropland soil carbon pool could have significant impacts on the European
carbon budget (Janssens et al.
2003
). As a matter of fact, under the Kyoto Protocol
(UNFCCC
1998
), carbon (C) sequestration in agricultural soils is accountable under
Article 3.4, being the management of cropland among those activities that a Country
signatory of the Kyoto Protocol may elect for meeting its emission reduction target.
Soil organic carbon (SOC) stock and dynamics in cropland soils are also important
for the quantification of the C emissions/removals involved in land use change pro-
cesses, such as afforestation, reforestation and deforestation activities, which are to be
accounted under Article 3.3 of the Kyoto Protocol.
Although the importance of the sector is well recognized, the information pub-
lished so far is scarce, fragmented, not homogeneous and limited to spotted studies
at local scale, that is also the reason why Italy has not decided to elect cropland man-
agement among the additional activities of article 3.4 (Tedeschi and Lumicisi
2006
).
In this purpose, the general aim of this chapter is to provide the most updated
information on the SOC stock stored at national level for the IPCC cropland cat-
egory. Specific aims are:
• To determine the amount of SOC stored in the different cropland land use types
at national level;
• To provide information on the agricultural practices able to preserve or increase
the SOC stock of the cropland categories;
• To determine the future trends of the SOC stored in the cropland soils trough
the use of a SOC model, considering as a case study the Sardinia region;
• To asses the SOC luxes along two speciic case studies from Trentino Alto
Adige region.
8.2 Croplands SOC Stocks Under Different Types of Land
Use and Climate
In order to provide Italy with the most updated information on the SOC stock
for the different land use types comprised within the IPCC cropland cate-
gory (e.g. arable land, agroforestry, vineyards, olive groves, orchards, and rice
