Canadian Soil Organic Carbon Compendium: Effects of Agricultural Management

A.J. VandenBygaart from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada compiled data from 62 long-term Canadian studies to assess the impact of agricultural management on soil organic carbon (SOC). The compendium quantifies SOC stock changes from practices like no-till, crop rotation, and fertilization, and provides stock change factors for models like the IPCC Guidelines. The data was compiled to support Canada's Kyoto Protocol commitments for verifiable estimates of SOC stocks and changes.

Use Cases

• Modeling soil carbon stock changes for national greenhouse gas inventories based on derived stock change factors.
• Comparing the effectiveness of no-till practices on SOC storage across different regions of Canada.
• Assessing the impact of specific crop rotations and fertilizer applications on long-term soil carbon levels.
• Evaluating the uncertainty in SOC estimates from long-term agricultural field studies.

Strengths

• Compiles data from 62 distinct long-term studies, providing a broad evidence base.
• Quantifies specific SOC changes, such as a 24 ± 6% loss after native land conversion to cropland.
• Derives empirical stock change factors with associated uncertainty levels for modeling.

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the compiled Canadian studies.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

Collection Method

Compilation of published data from 62 long-term agricultural studies in Canada.

Geography

Canada