Potential and economic efficiency of using reduced tillage to mitigate climate effects in Danish agriculture

Marianne Zandersen, Sisse Liv Jørgensen, Doan Nainggolan, Steen Gyldenkærne, Anne Winding, Mogens Humlekrog Greve and Mette Termansen

Ecological Economics, 2016, vol. 123, issue C, 14-22

Abstract: Soil organic carbon (SOC)11SOC: Soil Organic Carbon. plays a crucial role in regulating the global carbon cycle and its feedbacks within the Earth system. Compelling evidence exists that soil carbon stocks have reduced in many regions of the world, with these reductions often associated with agriculture. In a Danish context, research also suggests that soil carbon stocks are declining. The scope of Payment for Ecosystem Service (PES) approaches to effectively and efficiently address climate regulation will depend on the spatial distribution of the carbon assimilation capacity, current land use, the value of avoided emissions and land owners' objectives and preferences in terms of participating in initiatives to increase SOC. We map the carbon sequestration potential under different scenarios, value the potential sequestered carbon in terms of marginal costs of using voluntary agreements with agricultural land managers and compare these to the marginal abatement costs curve used in Danish climate policy. The cost effectiveness of reduced tillage as a climate mitigation PES scheme critically depends on the current debate on the net effects of carbon sequestration in reduced tillage practices. Based on existing IPCC guidelines, we find that reduced tillage has considerable potential for contributing to a cost effective climate mitigation policy.

Keywords: Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES); Climate regulating services; Soil organic carbon (SOC); Reduced tillage; Sequestration; Choice experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800915004735
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:123:y:2016:i:c:p:14-22

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2015.12.002

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().