Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 10.1
Rate of C sequestration of recommended management practices (RMP) derived
from the main long-term trials in Italy compared to the business as usual scenario (BAU)
−
1
)
Sequestration rate (t C ha
Legnaro (PD)
*
Cadriano (BO)
**
BAU
RMP
Pisa
(PI)
***
0.02 (
0.001)
Crop rotations
Monoculture
Crop rotation
0.4 (0.05)
Grass
0.10 (
0.07)
Residue incorporation
Residue removal
0.16
0.17
0.31-0.35
d
Low inorganic rate
0.038 (0.016)
High inorganic rate
0.20
a
(
0.07)
0.58
b
(
0.15)
0.26
b
Animal Manure
Inorganic fertilizer
0.18
c
0.27
c
(
0.13)
0.67
e
Conventional tillage
No tillage
0.08-0.34
e
Cover crops
Main crops
*
Morari et al. (
2006
) from Table 6 and Lugato et al. (
2006
);
**
Triberti et al. (
2008
) from Table 4;
***
Mazzoncini et al. (
2011
) from Table 7
a
In wheat monoculture;
b
farm yard manure;
c
slurry;
d
calculated as N1 and N2-N0 rate;
e
calcu-
lated as RMP—control rate
Beside these long-term trials, other shorter but very well monitored experimen-
tal fields are present in Italy, such as that carried on by the University of Udine at
Beano (see Sect.
2.2.2
). This site is equipped with two Eddy Covariance stations
and a soils respiration system with several dynamic chambers, which also allow
the measurement of N
2
O fluxes (Alberti et al.
2010
). The fluxes campaign showed
that conversion from maize to alfalfa was not effective in sequestering SOC with
respect to continuous maize, in the short-term (2 years). However, data coming
from a land use change chronosequence in that area (NE—Italy) (del Galdo et al.
2003
), clearly highlighted that permanent grassland contained almost double SOC
content than maize in the first 10 cm, and the same amount of C in the deeper
layer (10-30 cm). In this study, afforestation of cultivated soils occurred 20 years
ago resulted in significant sequestration of new C and stabilization of old C in
physically protected soil organic matter fractions.
10.1.2 Modeling Application and Territorial Upscaling
Long and short-term field experiments allow the investigation of C and N turnover
on a different temporal scale, but the results upscaling may be limited by the rep-
resentativeness of the site pedo-climatic condition. In this context, biogeochemical
process-based models could become very powerful tools, both to make prediction
in time and space.
