To assess carbon sequestration in the agricultural and natural systems, it is usually required to report soil organic carbon (SOC) as mass per unit area (Mg ha-1) for a single soil layer (e.g., the 0-0.3 m ploughing layer). However, if the SOC data are reported as relative concentration (g kg-1 or %), it is required to compute the SOC stock and its standard deviation (SD) for a given layer as the product of SOC concentration and bulk density (BD). For a proper computation, it is required to consider that these two variables are correlated. Moreover, if the data are already reported as SOC stock for multiple sub-layers (e.g., 0-0.15 m, 0.15-0.3 m) it is necessary to compute the SOC stock and its SD for a single soil layer (e.g., 0-0.3 m). The correlation between stocks values from adjacent and non-adjacent soil sub-layers must be accounted to compute the SD of the single soil layer. The present work illustrates the methodology to compute SOC stock and its SD for a single soil layer based on SOC concentration and BD also from multiple sub-layers. An Excel workbook automatically computes the means of stocks and SD saving the results in a ready-to-use database.

TADIELLO Tommaso;  PEREGO Alessia;  VALKAMA Elena;  SCHILLACI Calogero;  ACUTIS Marco; 

2022-04-01

ELSEVIER BV

JRC128681

2215-0161 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215016122000462,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC128681,   

10.1016/j.mex.2022.101662 (online),