Soil Carbon - Losses of Soil Carbon

Losses of Soil Carbon

Although exact quantities are difficult to measure, human activities have caused massive losses of soil organic carbon. First was the use of fire, which removes soil cover and leads to immediate and continuing losses of soil organic carbon. Tillage and drainage both expose soil organic matter to oxygen and oxidation. In the Netherlands, East Anglia, Florida, and the California delta, subsidence of peat lands from oxidation has been severe as a result of tillage and drainage.

Grazing management that exposes soil (either excessive or insufficient recovery periods) can also cause losses of soil organic carbon.

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