Jordkvalitet. Pedologi: allmänt

This document presents a method to quantify the soil organic carbon and nitrogen stocks in mineral soils at plot scale. It also provides guidance on how to detect and quantify simultaneously the variations of the carbon and nitrogen stocks over time in mineral soils at field scale. It is based on several documents already published [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8].

This guidance does not apply to organic soils, soils with permafrost, wetland soils, or to soil layers prone to submergence below the groundwater table.

NOTE 1 The potential for soil to store carbon is viewed as a possible way to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Knowledge on soil nitrogen is also crucial as nitrogen interacts with carbon cycling through plant and organic matter decomposers nutrition, and leakage of N is of environmental concern (e.g. N2O emissions, NO3- leaching). Therefore, it is becoming increasingly important to measure accurately the impact of changes of land uses and practices on organic carbon and nitrogen stocks.

NOTE 2 While understanding changes in soil inorganic carbon also will be required to understand the land-atmosphere exchange of CO2, measuring stocks of soil inorganic carbon is outside the scope of this guidance document.