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Human-induced erosion has offset one-third of carbon emissions from land cover change

Nature Climate Change volume 7, pages 345–349 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Anthropogenic land cover change (ALCC) is an important carbon (C) loss mechanism1,2,3, but current methods do not consider the role of accelerated soil organic C erosion and its burial in sediments in their assessments of net soil–atmosphere C exchange. Using a comprehensive global database and parsimonious modelling, we evaluate the impact of anthropogenic soil erosion on C fluxes between the Earth’s surface and atmosphere from the onset of agriculture to the present day. We find that agricultural erosion represents a very large and transient perturbation to the C cycle and has induced a cumulative net uptake of 78 ± 22 Pg C in terrestrial ecosystems during the period 6000 BC to AD 2015. This erosion-induced soil organic C sink is estimated to have offset 37 ± 10% of previously recognized C emissions resulting from ALCC. We estimate that rates of C burial have increased by a factor of 4.6 since AD 1850. Thus, current assessments may significantly overestimate both past and future anthropogenic emissions from the land. Given that ALCC is the most uncertain component of the global C budget and that there is a strong connection between ALCC and erosion, an explicit representation of erosion and burial processes is essential to fully understand the impact of human activities on the net soil–atmosphere C exchange.

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Figure 1: Component fluxes of the erosion-induced C budget for the period of agriculture.
Figure 2: Comparison of observed and simulated cumulative anthropogenic sediment fluxes.
Figure 3: Observed and simulated SOC profiles for 20 climate–geomorphic classes.
Figure 4: Temporal evolution of land–atmosphere C fluxes due to primary ALCC emissions and erosion/burial.

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Acknowledgements

Z.W. is funded by BELSPO (IUAP programme, contract: P7-24). J.O.K. is supported by the European Research Council (313797 COEVOLVE). K.V.O. is a Senior Research Associate of the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS), Belgium. Support for this project was provided by the FNRS (convention number 2.4590.12). We thank S. Bouillon, H. Maclean, T. A. Quine and A. Stevens for comments on earlier versions of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Georges Lemaître Center for Earth and Climate Research (TECLIM), Earth and Life Institute, Université catholique de Louvain, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Zhengang Wang & Kristof Van Oost

  2. Department of Geography, University of Bonn, Meckenheimer Allee 166, 53115 Bonn, Germany

    Thomas Hoffmann

  3. German Federal Institute of Hydrology, Am Mainzer Tor 1, 56068 Koblenz, Germany

    Thomas Hoffmann

  4. Department of Environmental Systems Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

    Johan Six

  5. Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, University of Lausanne, Geopolis, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

    Jed O. Kaplan

  6. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, K.U. Leuven, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium

    Gerard Govers

  7. Institute of Geography, Augsburg University, Alter Postweg 118, 86159 Augsburg, Germany

    Sebastian Doetterl

  8. ISOFYS-Isotope Bioscience Laboratory, Ghent University, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Gent, Belgium

    Sebastian Doetterl

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  1. Zhengang Wang
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Contributions

Z.W. and K.V.O. conceived the research; Z.W. performed the analysis; Z.W. and K.V.O. co-wrote the paper. All authors assisted in the interpretation of the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zhengang Wang.

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Wang, Z., Hoffmann, T., Six, J. et al. Human-induced erosion has offset one-third of carbon emissions from land cover change. Nature Clim Change 7, 345–349 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3263

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