SP3 - Organic Carbon (OC) Storage in Soils

Institution: Leibniz University Hannover

Project description

The overarching goals of this subproject are (1) to lay the scientific basis for sustainable and carbon-optimized land management in the largest conversion areas in the world, located in the south Siberian/Kazakh steppes, and (2) to investigate how these vulnerable agricultural ecosystems can be best adopted to climate change. Individual objectives are:
     
Individual goals    

1. To evaluate the organic carbon (OC) storage in soils under different land use and soil management and to estimate C sequestration under optimized land use and aban-doned arable fields as compared to conventional tillage.
2. To quantify the C turnover of the OC by a combination of a stable C isotope pulse-labeling experiment and 14C approaches.
3. To assess the consequences of climate change on the sustainability of the C seques-tration in soil carrying out the above studies along climatic gradient in the Kulunda steppe.
4. To provide the scientific basis for the establishment of a decision making tool (model) for C friendly and sustainable soil management.