Introduction

Overview

Soil is one of the world’s valuable non-renewable natural resources critical for

food production, ecological regulation, and economic services. The finite resource

has been under pressure due to many competing interest. Alongside climate change;

land-use change and unsustainable soil management had further degraded the soils.

Hence, soil has become one of the most vulnerable natural resources. Globally, 3%

of soils are degraded caused by unsustainable soil management. Several studies

show, not only soil degradation enhances the effects of climate change but is also

linked to the decline of soil quality. Since then, sustainable soil management and

practices has been adopted which are designed to enhance the soil organic matter

and improve soil characteristics. However, the lack and uncertainty of the exact

drivers and sites of environmentally degraded lands, impedes for an effective

intervention.

Soil organic carbon plays an essential role in global carbon balance. The soils

in terrestrial ecosystems has the largest C pool than in plants and atmosphere

combined. One-third of global SOC pool is contained in tropical regions (Hiederer &

Köchy 2011), and the most vulnerable portion of SOC pool, contributing CO 2

emission due to deforestation and land use change (Canadell et al. 2007). It has

been emphasized that land use and soil management has a potential to either

contribute to net sink or net source of greenhouse gases (GHG’s). Aside of being a

potential carbon sequester, SOC has been recognized as indicator of soil quality. To

date, sustainable soil management practices has been appealing to the masses as it
preserves the soil carbon stocks which reduces carbon emissions and improve soil

productivity.

Sustainable soil and land management interventions that are designed to increase

soil organic matter should be accompanied by actions that address the drivers of

degradation and help preserve existing soil carbon stocks, particularly in soils with high soil

organic carbon content

Many interventions were created to subside the negative impacts of land use

change through integral implementation of sustainable soil management practices.

Large‐scale changes in land use like deforestation and agricultural activities, including

biomass burning, plowing, drainage, and low‐input farming have resulted in significant changes in

soil organic carbon (SOC) pools (Lal, 2003).

Such studies become a foundation to support in developing and promoting

climate change policy and agricultural production. Knowingly, one of the major

contributor of SOC changes cannot be deviated to anthropogenic activities. Despite

the significance, SOC still poorly understood due to various factors that may

influence the SOC dynamics such as climate, soil type, landscape position, cropping

systems, and other soil forming factors.

 Quantifying the SOC stock is one of the traditional method to monitor the soil

organic carbon. The SOC stock can change through impact of land use change and

deforestation (Scharlemann et al. 2014). The stocks of organic carbon in upper layer

are particularly responsive to these influences and their careful management

provides an opportunity to reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the

atmosphere. Generally, the SOC stock tends to be lower in agricultural soils in

comparison to those under natural ecosystems because of lower inputs of biomass,

higher decomposition rates, changes, in the soil moisture and temperature regimes,

and soil erosion and leaching (Lal 2007). Soil organic carbon has been considered

as a good indicator for soil quality as well as a combat for climate change adaptation

and mitigation.

Comparison of SOC storage of different land uses can be complicated due to

complexity and other factors that may influence the SOC dynamics such as climate,

landscape position, cropping systems, and other soil forming factors.

Sustainable soil and land management interventions that are designed to increase

soil organic matter should be accompanied by actions that address the drivers of

degradation and help preserve existing soil carbon stocks, particularly in soils with high soil

organic carbon content

The traditional method of SOC quantification involves collection of soil

samples of 1 m depth.

Many studies relating to the influence of land use change and soil

management practices on SOC in relation to mitigating and adapting climate change

and improving soil quality in tropic countries.

 The SOC stock can be significantly modified by the impact of anthropogenic activities such as

deforestation and land-use change (Scharlemann et al. 2014). Generally, the SOC stock tends to be

lower in agricultural soils in comparison to those under natural ecosystems because of lower inputs

of biomass, higher decomposition rates, changes, in the soil moisture and temperature regimes, and

soil erosion and leaching (Lal 2007). Soils with reduced SOC stocks have a potential C sink capacity,

which under the adoption of recommended management practices may sequester SOC by

stabilization processes. It is the source of carbon emission amplifying the effects of the

greenhouse effect. In exchange, such degraded lands are more likely to be affected

by the damages of climate change compared to healthy soils.

The increased demand for accurate soil C and N stock assessments and predictions of C and

N changes as a result of land use/cover and climate change has triggered large-scale and long-term

measurements of soil C and N stocks and pools globally [4-6]. Such empirical studies provide critical

information to quantify the response of soil properties to management and changing climate across

regions, ultimately supporting climate change and farm policy, food security, and overall ecosystem

health. Monitoring soil C and N stocks is imperative not only for understanding how soils change in

response to land use and shifting climate patterns, but also for validating and reducing the

uncertainty around estimates of biogeochemical prediction models as Century [7], DayCent [8], Roth

C [9] and DNDC [10] commonly used in regional and national GHG inventories. Model outputs

typically come with large uncertainties [11,12], which is at least partly due to the still limited
knowledge about ecosystem processes and properties involved in C and N cycling [13].

Consequently, direct measurements by repeated soil inventories are urgently needed to improve our

understanding of C and N dynamics and further constrain model estimates [6,12]

The SOC stock can be significantly modified by the impact of anthropogenic activities such as

deforestation and land-use change (Scharlemann et al. 2014). Generally, the SOC stock tends to be

lower in agricultural soils in comparison to those under natural ecosystems because of lower inputs

of biomass, higher decomposition rates, changes, in the soil moisture and temperature regimes, and

soil erosion and leaching (Lal 2007). Soils with reduced SOC stocks have a potential C sink capacity,

which under the adoption of recommended management practices may sequester SOC by

stabilization processes

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is one of the component of soil organic matter

(SOM). Studies indicate the importance of SOM as an indicator to soil quality.

Alongside soil organic matter, the analysis of soil organic carbon has been

significantly important in monitoring the soil quality. Soil quality defines as ‘‘the

capacity of a specific kind of soil to function, within natural or managed ecosystem

boundaries, to sustain plant and animal productivity, maintain or enhance water and

air quality, and support human health and habitation’’ (NRCS, 2008). Soil organic

carbon and stocks significantly contribute in determining the degraded lands. Since

such soil property is found in the upper layer, it is directly influenced to the changes

that occur on land. Land use is considered as one of the driver of C dynamics.

Various studies were conducted which focuses on quantifying the soil organic carbon

of different land use types, and soil management (West and Post 2002). The

vegetation cover is also found to be linked to the carbon storage of soils. Reports

show that the SOC of soil surface layer of 0-10 cm profoundly influenced by land-use
change and soil management while little distinction of SOC change in the lower

depths. However, determining the SOC in the soil surface alone indicates low

threshold of indicating the quality of soils. It has been reported that the subsurface

soils of lands exposed to agricultural practices is affects the carbon stock. Hence, it

is important to account for the whole soil profile.

Many studies had taken account on the importance of understanding the SOC

stocks changes.

Soil organic carbon plays an essential role in global carbon balance. The soils

in terrestrial ecosystems has the largest C pool than in plants and atmosphere

combined. It has the potential to sequester carbon to combat climate change. Many

studies highlighted that degraded lands is linked climate change. It is the source of

carbon emission amplifying the effects of the greenhouse effect. In exchange, such

degraded lands are more likely to be affected by the damages of climate change

compared to healthy soils. Soil organic carbon has been considered as a good

indicator for soil quality. Existing studies highlighted

In the Philippines, the existing land uses includes agriculture, forestry,

pasture, and grasslands. A report indicated that the country had been losing

(percentage) forest covers for past years converted into agriculture and urbanization.

In Leyte, see cited of Sir Navarette in researchgate

 Soils has been taken for granted and undervalued natural resource for many

years (Bridges and Barren, 1997).

(magfocus ba ko sa soil organic carbon as an indicator of carbon

sequestration, soil health, and soil quality)

Soil host the largest terrestrial carbon pool and biogeochemical processes

that takes place in the soil regulate the exchange of greenhouse gases with the

atmosphere. Both geochemical processes and emission are strongly affected by

land use, land-use change, vegetation cover and soil management. The stocks of

organic carbon in upper layer are particularly responsive to these influences and

their careful management provides an opportunity to reduce the concentration of

greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Soil organic carbon and stocks were used in

determining the proportion of land that is degraded out of the total land area. These

properties determine the proper management practices that need to be adopted to to

maintain the delivery of soil ecosystem services, such as storing water, supplying

nutrients to plants, sequestering carbon and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Understanding these properties will enable agricultural producers and other land

users to adapt to climate change and mitigate its impacts. There are many proven
practices that can help farmers adapt to climate change that are designed to

increase soil organic matter and improve soil characteristics.

Soil organic carbon stratification

Many land use studies indicate as one of the factors that contribute to the soil

degradation. influences the soil characteristics. Some soil properties, such as soil

textureii, are more resistant to change, or change very slowly over time. Other

properties and functions, such as soil organic matter and soil organic carbon content

(see Chapter B7-3.3), soil structureiii, base saturation and nutrient availability, soil

organism populations, and pHiv, are more easily affected by environment changes,

including those associated with climate, and prevailing land management. (studies

that shows changes in the soil properties). Many interventions were created to

subside the negative impacts of land use change through integral implementation of

sustainable soil management practices. (conversion of primary forest to secondary

forest). Along those is monitoring the important physicochemical properties.

Soil organic carbon

Hence, important physical, chemical, and biological properties were monitored

to understand the dynamic of soils in different land uses.

 (5) (PDF) Soil organic carbon. Available from:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347528977_Soil_organic_carbon

[accessed Mar 19 2022]. SOM changes in time and it is influenced by management

practices, especially by tillage and by theamount and characteristics of organic

residues entering the soil (Cambardella & Elliot, 1992; Ding et al., 2006).

(5) (PDF) Soil organic carbon. Available from:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347528977_Soil_organic_carbon

[accessed Mar 19 2022].

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is the most widely usedestimative of SOM (Nelson &

Sommers, 1996;Romaniuk et al., 2018). However, organic matter is aquite

complicated cluster composed by many differentpools of molecules, with highly

variable chemicalcomposition and properties, size, molecular weight, andthereby

different resistance to degradation and functionin the soil matrix (Swift, 1996; Olk et

al., 2019). Fromthis fact arises the need to describe more preciselySOM, in order to

understand the effect of each pool ondifferent soil properties (Recio-Vázquez et al.,

2014)and be able to rapidly detect seasonal or managementinduced changes (Kay &

VandenBygaart, 2002).Decomposition rates of organic molecules may varyfrom a

few hours to several thousand years (Swift,1996; Kay & VandenBygaart, 2002). As

stable organiccarbon represents an important fraction of SOC, SOCvalues are not

always sensitive to identify changes overshort periods of time (Plaza-Bonilla et al.,

2014). Thus,separating and quantifying more dynamic carbonfractions (with an

earlier response to changes inmanagement) has been pointed out as an efficient

toolto identify more sustainable agricultural practices(Bongiovanni & Lobartini, 2006;

Ding et al., 2006; Duvalet al., 2013; Plaza-Bonilla et al., 2014). In addition,many

authors have found some fractions of SOC tohave stronger correlations with specific
physical,chemical and hydraulic properties (Recio-Vazquez etal., 2014).

(5) (PDF) Soil organic carbon. Available from:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347528977_Soil_organic_carbon

[accessed Mar 19 2022].

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347528977_Soil_organic_carbon

Problem

Importance

Literature

Objectives

Time and Place

Alongside water and genetic resources; soil is one of life’s most essential non-

renewable natural resources. Soils are the foundation of food production, and

provide many other essential economic services. The degradation of soil undermines

its abilities to provide these services. For a long time, soils were simply taken for

granted. In fact, FAO’s 2015 “Status of World’s Soil Resources” report was the first

major global assessment of soils and related issues ever conducted. This report

showed about 33 percent of global soils are moderately or highly degraded due to

unsustainable management practices. As a result, climate change, land degradation,

and loss of biodiversity, soil has become of the world’s vulnerable resources. The

degradation of soil is a major or core challenge for sustainable development,

because it negatively impacts the ecosystem services provided by soils and

undermines food security and nutrition, water quality and availability, human health,

and social and economic development. The interaction between the different

components of land resources determines the productivity and sustainability of any

land-use system. Land productivity depends directly on soil productivity and health.

Soils. especially those that have been degraded, are at risk from damaging effects of

climate change. In return, land degradation itself a driver of climate change and

exacerbates its impact.

Soil host the largest terrestrial carbon pool and biogeochemical processes

that takes place in the soil regulate the exchange of greenhouse gases with the

atmosphere. Both geochemical processes and emission are strongly affected by

land use, land-use change, vegetation cover and soil management. The stocks of

organic carbon in upper layer are particularly responsive to these influences and

their careful management provides an opportunity to reduce the concentration of

greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Some soil properties, such as soil textureii, are more resistant to change, or change
very slowly over time. Other properties and functions, such as soil organic matter
and soil organic carbon content (see Chapter B7-3.3), soil structureiii, base saturation
and nutrient availability, soil organism populations, and pHiv, are more easily affected
by environment changes, including those associated with climate, and prevailing
land management. Soil organic carbon and carbon stocks above and below ground
are included in the monitoring of Sustainable Development Goal indicator 15.3.1 for
determining the proportion of land that is degraded out of the total land area. The
physical properties of the soil affect how the soil will respond to climate change.
These properties determine the proper management practices that need to be
adopted to to maintain the delivery of soil ecosystem services, such as storing water,
supplying nutrients to plants, sequestering carbon and reducing greenhouse gas
emissions. Understanding these properties will enable agricultural producers and
other land users to adapt to climate change and mitigate its impacts.

Soil hosts the largest terrestrial carbon pool, and the biogeochemical processes that
take place in the soil regulate the exchange of greenhouse gases with the
atmosphere (Scharlemann et al., 2014). These processes and emissions are
strongly affected by land use, land-use change, vegetation cover and soil
management (Chapter B7-2.1). The stocks of soil organic carbon in the upper soil
layers are particularly responsive to these influences, and their careful management
provides an opportunity to reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere.

Sustainable crop, grazing and forest systems can sequester substantial amounts of
carbon from the atmosphere and store it in soils and vegetation (Figure B7.2). The
mechanisms underpinning terrestrial carbon sequestration are described in Box
B7.3.

Sustainable soil and land management interventions that are designed to increase
soil organic matter should be accompanied by actions that address the drivers of
degradation and help preserve existing soil carbon stocks, particularly in soils with
high soil organic carbon content (see Box B7.2) (Smith et al., 2014).

Bridges, E., Van Baren, J. SOIL: AN OVERLOOKED, UNDERVALUED AND VITAL

PART OF THE HUMAN ENVIRONMENT. The Environmentalist 17, 15–20 (1997).

https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018575211129
It has been widely recognised that world soils play a key role in the global C cycle

and that agricultural activities constitute a major source of C emission to the

atmosphere (Hall, 1989; Batjes, 1998; Mosier, 1998; Rosenzweig and Hillel, 2000).

Since an important part of the present atmospheric C pool came from the soil, there

exist a potential to reverse the trend and sequester C into the pedosphere through

appropriate land use, farming systems and management practices (Lal et al., 1998).

The potential of different ecoregions of the world to sequester C is climatic

dependent, being higher in tropical and temperate regions where crop growth

conditions are more favorable. Due to the droughts, arid and semiarid regions have

lower capacity to sequester C on an unit area basis. However, because of the large

extent of such areas, the total capacity may be significant (Woomer, 1993).

Important practices for improving soil productivity and at the same time for

enhancing C sequestration include: organic residue management, mulch farming,

tillage systems, adapting crop rotations and cropping/farming systems with

avoidance of bare fallow. Soil tillage practices are of particular significance to the soil

C status because they affect C dynamics directly and indirectly. Following long-term

tillage, soil C stocks can be reduced as much as 20–50% (Murty et al., 2002; Ogle et

al., 2003). Conservation tillage on the contrary, reduced the negative impact of tillage

and has proved to have the potential for converting many soils from sources to sinks

of atmospheric C (Freibauer et al., 2004; Baker et al., 2007; Moreno et al., 2006;

Martı´n-Rueda et al., 2007) and can be considered one of the largest potential

sources of greenhouse gas mitigation within the agricultural sector. Lal et al. (1998)
estimated that widespread adoption of conservation tillage on some 400 million ha of

cropland by the year 2020 may lead to total C sequestration of 1.5–4.9 Pg. Changes

in SOC as influenced by tillage are expected to be more noticeable under long-term

rather than short-term tillage practices. In an analysis of 17 experiments Kern and

Johnson (1993) concluded that a change from CT to NT sequester the greatest

amount of C in the top 8 cm of soil, a lesser amount in the 8- to 15-cm depth, and no

significant amount below 15 cm. They also assumed the duration of C sequestration

to be between 10 and 20 years. Paustian et al. (1997) compared 39 paired tillage

experiments, ranging in duration from 5 to 20 years, and estimated that NT resulted

in an average soil C increase of 285 g m2 with respect to CT. In an analysis of 17

European tillage experiments Smith et al. (1998) found that the average increase of

SOC, with a change from CT to NT, was 0.73 0.39% year1 , and that SOC may

reach a new equilibrium in approximately 50–100 years. West and Post (2002)

reported that a change from CT to NT can sequester an average 57 14 g C m2

year1 , and based on regression analyses indicate that, within 5–20 year, C

sequestration rates can be expected to have a delayed response, reach peak

sequestration rates in 5–10 years, and decline to near zero in 15–20 years.

Recently, Hernanz et al. (2009), evaluated SOC variations in three tillage systems

over a period of 20 years and concluded that the average SOC was 14% higher in

NT than in MT and CT and that the steady state of SOC sequestration was reached

after 11 years of starting the experiment in NT and 12 years in MT and CT. However,

some authors (Halvorson et al., 2002; Al-Kaisi et al., 2005) after several years of

experimentation, have encountered no significant differences between CT, MT and

NT in relation to the SOC stored either in the top soil layer or in deeper layers. The

objectives of this study were to investigate over a period of 17 years the effects of
three tillage systems: no-tillage (NT), minimum tillage with chisel plow (MT), and

conventional tillage with mouldboard plow (CT), on SOC status and on SOC

stratification ratio as indicators of management-induced changes in soil quality.

Outline

Soil organic carbon