Terrestrial organic carbon storage in a British moorland |
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Authors: | MarK. H. Garnett,&dagger ,Philip Ineson,&dagger ,Anthony C. Stevenson, David C. Howard&dagger |
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Affiliation: | Department of Geography, University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE1 7RU, UK,;Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Merlewood Research Station, Grange-over-Sands, Cumbria LA11 6JU, UK |
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Abstract: | Accurate estimates for the size of terrestrial organic carbon (C) stores are needed to determine their importance in regulating atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The C stored in vegetation and soil components of a British moorland was evaluated in order to: (i) investigate the importance of these ecosystems for C storage and (ii) test the accuracy of the United Kingdom's terrestrial C inventory. The area of vegetation and soil types was determined using existing digitized maps and a Geographical Information System (GIS). The importance of evaluating C storage using 2D area projections, as opposed to true surface areas, was investigated and found to be largely insignificant. Vegetation C storage was estimated from published results of productivity studies at the site supplemented by field sampling to evaluate soil C storage. Vegetation was found to be much less important for C storage than soil, with peat soils, particularly Blanket bog, containing the greatest amounts of C. Whilst the total amount of C in vegetation was similar to the UK national C inventory's estimate for the same area, the national inventory estimate for soil C was over three times higher than the value derived in the current study. Because the UK's C inventory can be considered relatively accurate compared to many others, the results imply that current estimates for soil C storage, at national and global scales, should be treated with caution. |
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Keywords: | carbon storage GIS moorland peat soil vegetation |
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