A Worldwide Assessment of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Drained Organic Soils

Sustainability

Mirella Salvatore¹  Simone Rossi¹  Riccardo Biancalani²  Francesco Nicola Tubiello³  Giulia Conchedda³ 

[1] Climate and Environment Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, Rome 00153, Italy;Land and Water Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, Rome 00153, Italy;Statistics Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, Rome 00153, Italy;

关键词: organic soils;    peatlands;    drainage;    soil;    climate change;    emissions;    mitigation;    cropland;    grassland;    land cover/land use;   

DOI  :  10.3390/su8040371

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Despite the importance of organic soils, including peatlands, in the global carbon cycle, detailed information on regional and global emissions is scarce. This is due to the difficulty to map, measure, and assess the complex dynamics of land, soil, and water interactions needed to assess the human-driven degradation of organic soils. We produced a new methodology for the comprehensive assessment of drained organic soils in agriculture and the estimation of the associated greenhouse gas emissions. Results indicated that over 25 million hectares of organic soils were drained worldwide for agriculture use, of which about 60% were in boreal and temperate cool areas, 34% in tropical areas, and 5% in warm temperate areas. Total emissions from the drainage were globally significant, totaling nearly one billion tonnes CO2eq annually. Of this, the CO2 component, about 780 million tonnes, represented more than one-fourth of total net CO2 emissions from agriculture, forestry, and land use. The bulk of these emissions came from a few tropical countries in Southeast Asia, and was linked to land clearing and drainage for crop cultivation. Geospatial data relative to this work were disseminated via the FAO geospatial server GeoNetwork, while the national aggregated statistics were disseminated via the FAOSTAT database.

【 授权许可】

Unknown