TY - JOUR U1 - Wissenschaftlicher Artikel A1 - Kämpf, Immo A1 - Hölzel, Norbert A1 - Störrle, Maria A1 - Broll, Gabriele A1 - Kiehl, Kathrin T1 - Potential of temperate agricultural soils for carbon sequestration: A meta-analysis of land-use effects JF - Science of The Total Environment N2 - Restoring depleted soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks of arable land to remove carbon from the atmosphere and offset fossil fuel emissions is a promising strategy for the mitigation of climate change. In agroecosystems conservational tillage practices and the abandonment of formerly plowed fields (ex-arable land) are shown to have the highest potential to sequester SOC. Nevertheless reported sequestration rates vary and the effects of environmental site conditions remain poorly understood. Our results are based on a meta-analysis of 273 paired SOC estimates from 65 publications which included only mineral soils from the temperate zone. SOC stocks of ex-arable grasslands with an average of 14 years since abandonment were 18% larger compared to the SOC of arable land. Likewise, SOC stocks of never-plowed grassland plots were 11% larger than the SOC stocks of abandoned fields. The average sequestration rate was 0.72 t C ha− 1 yr− 1. Semi-arid and sub-humid climate as well as low initial SOC stocks positively affected proportional SOC gains suggesting that the recovery of carbon stocks is not limited by low primary production. Therefore, the northward shift of cultivation areas in the temperate zone will lead to the abandonment of soils with high SOC recovery potential. However, if native soils are opened up elsewhere to compensate for yield losses due to abandonment the surplus of SOC in ex-arable land can easily be overcompensated by cultivation losses. KW - SOC KW - Carbon sequestration KW - Agricultural abandonment KW - Ex-arable KW - No-till farming Y1 - 2016 SN - 0048-9697 SS - 0048-9697 SN - 1879-1026 SS - 1879-1026 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.05.067 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.05.067 N1 - Zugriff im Hochschulnetz IS - 566-567 SP - 428 EP - 435 ER -