Soil organic carbon stocks are systematically overestimated by misuse of the parameters bulk density and rock fragment content
Open accessPublished version of a preprint
Abstract
Abstract. Estimation of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks requires estimates of the carbon content, bulk density, rock fragment content and depth of a respective soil layer. However, different application of these parameters could introduce a considerable bias. Here, we explain why three out of four frequently applied methods overestimate SOC stocks. In soils rich in rock fragments (> 30 vol. %), SOC stocks could be overestimated by more than 100 %, as revealed by using German Agricultural Soil Inventory data. Due to relatively low rock fragments content, the mean systematic overestimation for German agricultural soils was 2.1–10.1 % for three different commonly used equations. The equation ensemble as re-formulated here might help to unify SOC stock determination and avoid overestimation in future studies.
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Transforming SOC density to SOC stocks may introduce errors and/or bias.
“This transformation may introduce errors and/or bias (Poeplau, Vos, & Don, 2017) but was deemed necessary due to lack of equivalence in reporting.”
From Changes in soil organic carbon under perennial crops (2020) · cites this paper as Poeplau, Vos, & Don, 2017
Cites
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Self-citationThe soil skeleton, a forgotten pool of carbon and nitrogen in soil
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Changes in soil organic carbon under perennial crops
Ledo, A., Smith, P., Zerihun, A., Whitaker, J., Vicente‐Vicente, J. L., Qin, Z., McNamara, N. P., Zinn, Y. L., Llorente, M., Liebig, M., et al. (2020) · Global Change Biology · doi:10.1111/gcb.15120 · Cited by 280 · see citing works
Self-citationAhirwal, J., & Maiti, S. K. (2018) · CATENA · doi:10.1016/j.catena.2018.03.026 · Cited by 117 · see citing works
A global, empirical, harmonised dataset of soil organic carbon changes under perennial crops
Ledo, A., Hillier, J., Smith, P., Aguilera, E., Blagodatskiy, S., Brearley, F. Q., Datta, A., Diaz-Pines, E., Don, A., Dondini, M., et al. (2019) · Scientific Data · doi:10.1038/s41597-019-0062-1 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
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- Authors
- Poeplau, C., Vos, C., & Don, A.
- Affiliations
- Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institut (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Poeplau, Christopher
- Vos, Cora
- Don, Axel
- Venue
- SOIL
- Publisher
- Copernicus GmbH
- Published
- 2017-03-13
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 61-66
- ISSN
- 2199-3971 (ISSN-L)
- 2199-398X
- OpenAlex
- W2564519254
- Cited by
- 330
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 41 · 2025: 59 · 2024: 43 · 2023: 40 · 2022: 44 · 2021: 36 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 7
- FWCI
- 20.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- SOIL (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- OpenAgrar (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Soil Geostatistics and Mapping
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil erosion and sediment transport
- Keywords
- soil organic carbon stocks, overestimation bias, bulk density, rock fragment content, agricultural soils, soil carbon inventory
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