Carbon Soil Storage and Technologies to Increase Soil Carbon Stocks in the South American Savanna

Gabriel Ribeiro Castellano, Landerlei Almeida Santos and Amauri Antonio Menegário
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Gabriel Ribeiro Castellano: Center of Environmental Studies, São Paulo State University, Rio Claro 13506900, Brazil
Landerlei Almeida Santos: School of Mechanical Engineering and Electronic Information, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Amauri Antonio Menegário: Center of Environmental Studies, São Paulo State University, Rio Claro 13506900, Brazil

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 9, 1-22

Abstract: The expansion of the agricultural frontiers that occurred in the last decades in the South American savanna ( Cerrado ), the second-largest biome in Brazil (covering an area of 204 million hectares), has accounted for a substantial portion of South America’s CO 2 emissions. In this context, our research investigated the potential for soil carbon storage in the biome. The analysis of previous data ( n = 197) shows a vertical distribution pattern of soil carbon stock: 26.17% for the upper 0–30 cm layer, 37.67% for the 30–100 cm layer, and 36.15% for the 100–200 cm layer. The total soil carbon storage for the biome is 13.5 ± 6.7 gigatons ( n = 71) for the upper 0–30 cm layer, 30.5 ± 18.9 Gt ( n = 64) for the 0–100 cm layer, and 47.8 ± 4.3 ( n = 9) for the 0–200 cm layer. The results indicate that the soil carbon stock up to 1 m deep in the Cerrado ranges from 0.5% to 2.29% of the global soil organic carbon storage for this depth. Further research is necessary to investigate what happens at a depth of at least 2 m. The results also indicate that the soil under pasture lands constitutes the largest manageable pool for increasing soil carbon stocks via the restoration of degraded pastures.

Keywords: soil carbon stocks; south american savanna; cerrado; land-use change; landcover (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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