Skip to main content

Web Content Display Web Content Display

Skip banner

Web Content Display Web Content Display

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 952327.

Web Content Display Web Content Display

FIND US AT

Web Content Display Web Content Display

Web Content Display Web Content Display

LINKAGE BETWEEN LAND COVER CHANGE AND SOIL ORGANIC CARBON SEQUESTRATION IN MOUNTAIN ECOSYSTEMS

Soil carbon sequestration is considered to be the most crucial natural process enabling mitigation of climate change (Lal, 2004). This process is primarily mediated by plants through photosynthesis, with atmospheric CO2 stored in the form of soil organic carbon (SOC). Soil can quickly and in relatively permanent way fix (sequester) a very large amonu of carbon. However, the efficiency of the soil carbon sequestration depends significantly on the soil properties. The mechanism of SOC stabilization includes sorption to clay minerals, protection within soil aggregates and biochemical recalcitrance (Six et al., 2002). Furthermore, the type of soil-forming process may significantly affect carbon storage – e.g., through podzolization organic carbon is fixed permanetly with iron and aluminum oxides and transferred to the subsoil (Brock et al., 2020; Musielok et al., 2021).

Restoring perennial vegetation (e.g., forests) on degraded (eroded) soil is one of the actions that have the most potential to sequester C in soil and help offset increasing atmospheric CO2 (Lal, 2004; Post and Kwon, 2008). However, the studies on the relation between forestation and SOC accumulation show uncertain and ambiguous results (Vesterdal and Leifeld, 2007; Prechtel et al., 2009). One of the major data and knowledge gaps in the context of SOC sequestration mechanism are: (1) the influence of the land-use history on current C-dynamics and (2) the effect of climate change on carbon stocks in mountain regions (Vesterdal and Leifeld, 2007). In the Central European mountains (Central Uplands, Alps, Carpathians) the main driver of forestation is abandonment of agricultural land use (Wallentin et al., 2008; Munteanu et al., 2014), while the global temperature warming can be considered as a factor accelerating the changes in vegetation succession. On the other hand, it is expected that climate change will influence windthrow risks in the future (Blennow et al. 2010). Hence, together with past wrong forest management practices this may result in higher soil susceptibility to erosion (Strzyżowski et al., 2018) and – finally – decrease in SOC stock (Wasak and Drewnik, 2015). Similarly, active nature conservation actions (e.g., forest clear-cutting) may lead to SOC stock reduction. This project will fill the data and knowledge gaps related to the effects of land-use history on present SOC stock and interactions between soils, biodiversity and geomorphic processes in mountain ecosystems.  
 
Team leader: Łukasz Musielok (JU)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research team members: Magdalena Gus-Stolarczyk (JU), Anna Bartos (JU), Agata Gołąb (JU), Mateusz Rajczyk (JU), Anna Rudnik (JU), Patrycja Wójtowicz (JU), Agnieszka Kafel (JU)


Supervisors: Bart Muys (KU Leuven), Dirk Tiede (PLUS)