Soil Erosion and Carbon Dynamics (Hardcover)

In addition to depleting nutrients necessary for healthy crops, soil erosion processes can affect the carbon balance of agroecosystems, and thus influence global warming.. While the magnitude and severity of soil erosion are well documented, fluxes of eroded carbon are rarely quantified. The most complete, nonpartisan source of information available today on this topic, Soil Erosion and Carbon Dynamics brings together a diverse group of papers and data from the perspectives of world-renowned sedimentologists, soil scientists, and agronomists to resolve whether soil erosion on carbon is a beneficial or destructive process. This book collects quantitative data on eroded carbon fluxes from the scale of the agricultural plot to that of large basins and oceans. It quantifies the magnitude of eroded carbon for different soil management practices as compared to normal carbon sequestration and discusses the fate of the eroded carbon and whether or not it is a source or sink for atmospheric CO2. Finally, the book offers data reflecting the impact of soil erosion on soil, water, and air quality. Other important topics include solubilization, the determination of mineralization rates, carbon transfer, and sediment deposition, as well as carbon dioxide emissions, global warming potential, and the implications of soil erosion on the global carbon cycle and carbon budget. Based on the first symposium of the international colloquium Land Uses, Erosion and Carbon Sequestration held in Montpellier, France, Soil Erosion and Carbon Dynamics provides data that links soil erosion to the global carbon cycle and elucidates the fate of eroded carbon at scales ranging from plot to watershed.