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      Assessment of soil organic carbon fractions and carbon management index under different land use types in Olesharo Catchment, Narok County, Kenya

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          Abstract

          Background

          The changes in land use and land cover have a strong effect on the total soil organic carbon, its fractions and its overall soil health. This study carried out in Olesharo Catchment, Kenya, was to quantify the differences in total organic carbon (TOC), particulate organic carbon (POC), mineral organic carbon (MOC) and carbon management index (CMI) among four land use types: grasslands, shrublands, agricultural lands and barelands. It was also purported to evaluate the use of CMI as an indicator for soil degradation or improvement in response to land use and land cover changes.

          Results

          The results of the study show that the mean values of TOC, POC and MOC are significantly different between land use types. Thus, shrublands have significantly higher TOC (22.26 g kg −1) than grasslands (10.29 g kg −1) and bare lands (7.56 g kg −1). They also have significantly higher POC (7.79 g kg −1) and MOC (10.04 g kg −1) than all the other land use types. The agricultural lands have higher CMI than grasslands (53% vs 41% relative to shrublands) suggesting that grasslands face serious degradation through overgrazing.

          Conclusions

          This study shows that different land use types have an influence on soil organic carbon pools, and consequently on the CMI, the CMI could be used as an indicator for soil degradation or improvement in response to land use and land cover changes.

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          Most cited references59

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          A global analysis of root distributions for terrestrial biomes

          R B Jackson, J Canadell, J R Ehleringer … (1996)
          Understanding and predicting ecosystem functioning (e.g., carbon and water fluxes) and the role of soils in carbon storage requires an accurate assessment of plant rooting distributions. Here, in a comprehensive literature synthesis, we analyze rooting patterns for terrestrial biomes and compare distributions for various plant functional groups. We compiled a database of 250 root studies, subdividing suitable results into 11 biomes, and fitted the depth coefficient β to the data for each biome (Gale and Grigal 1987). β is a simple numerical index of rooting distribution based on the asymptotic equation Y=1-βd, where d = depth and Y = the proportion of roots from the surface to depth d. High values of β correspond to a greater proportion of roots with depth. Tundra, boreal forest, and temperate grasslands showed the shallowest rooting profiles (β=0.913, 0.943, and 0.943, respectively), with 80-90% of roots in the top 30 cm of soil; deserts and temperate coniferous forests showed the deepest profiles (β=0.975 and 0.976, respectively) and had only 50% of their roots in the upper 30 cm. Standing root biomass varied by over an order of magnitude across biomes, from approximately 0.2 to 5 kg m-2. Tropical evergreen forests had the highest root biomass (5 kg m-2), but other forest biomes and sclerophyllous shrublands were of similar magnitude. Root biomass for croplands, deserts, tundra and grasslands was below 1.5 kg m-2. Root/shoot (R/S) ratios were highest for tundra, grasslands, and cold deserts (ranging from 4 to 7); forest ecosystems and croplands had the lowest R/S ratios (approximately 0.1 to 0.5). Comparing data across biomes for plant functional groups, grasses had 44% of their roots in the top 10 cm of soil. (β=0.952), while shrubs had only 21% in the same depth increment (β=0.978). The rooting distribution of all temperate and tropical trees was β=0.970 with 26% of roots in the top 10 cm and 60% in the top 30 cm. Overall, the globally averaged root distribution for all ecosystems was β=0.966 (r 2=0.89) with approximately 30%, 50%, and 75% of roots in the top 10 cm, 20 cm, and 40 cm, respectively. We discuss the merits and possible shortcomings of our analysis in the context of root biomass and root functioning.
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            The contentious nature of soil organic matter.

            Johannes Lehmann, Markus Kleber (2015)
            The exchange of nutrients, energy and carbon between soil organic matter, the soil environment, aquatic systems and the atmosphere is important for agricultural productivity, water quality and climate. Long-standing theory suggests that soil organic matter is composed of inherently stable and chemically unique compounds. Here we argue that the available evidence does not support the formation of large-molecular-size and persistent 'humic substances' in soils. Instead, soil organic matter is a continuum of progressively decomposing organic compounds. We discuss implications of this view of the nature of soil organic matter for aquatic health, soil carbon-climate interactions and land management.
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              Soil warming and carbon-cycle feedbacks to the climate system.

              J. M. Melillo (2002)
              In a decade-long soil warming experiment in a mid-latitude hardwood forest, we documented changes in soil carbon and nitrogen cycling in order to investigate the consequences of these changes for the climate system. Here we show that whereas soil warming accelerates soil organic matter decay and carbon dioxide fluxes to the atmosphere, this response is small and short-lived for a mid-latitude forest, because of the limited size of the labile soil carbon pool. We also show that warming increases the availability of mineral nitrogen to plants. Because plant growth in many mid-latitude forests is nitrogen-limited, warming has the potential to indirectly stimulate enough carbon storage in plants to at least compensate for the carbon losses from soils. Our results challenge assumptions made in some climate models that lead to projections of large long-term releases of soil carbon in response to warming of forest ecosystems.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Bernice M. Sainepo:
                ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5344-1502
                bernicesainepo@gmail.com
                Charles K. Gachene: gachenecharles@gmail.com
                Anne Karuma: annekaruma@gmail.com
                Journal
                Journal ID (nlm-ta): Carbon Balance Manag
                Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Carbon Balance Manag
                Title: Carbon Balance and Management
                Publisher: Springer International Publishing (Cham )
                ISSN (Electronic): 1750-0680
                Publication date (Electronic): 12 February 2018
                Publication date PMC-release: 12 February 2018
                Publication date Collection: December 2018
                Volume: 13
                Electronic Location Identifier: 4
                Affiliations
                [1 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2019 0495, GRID grid.10604.33, Department of Land Resource Management and Agricultural Technology, , University of Nairobi, ; P.O Box 29053, Nairobi, 00625 Kenya
                [2 ]Mainstreaming Sustainable land management in Agro-pastoral production, Kenya Project, United Nations Development Programme Kenya (UNDP-K), P.O. Box 30218, Nairobi, 00100 Kenya
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5344-1502
                Article
                Publisher ID: 91
                DOI: 10.1186/s13021-018-0091-7
                PMC ID: 5809624
                PubMed ID: 29435766
                SO-VID: c99005d3-4e5a-4cca-9888-84d4305b1f7f
                Copyright © © The Author(s) 2018
                License:

                Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

                History
                Date received : 26 May 2017
                Date accepted : 1 February 2018
                Funding
                Funded by: SLM project Agro-pastoral systems in kenya
                Award ID: UNDP-PIMS-3245 GEF ID - 3370
                Award Recipient :
                Categories
                Subject: Research
                Custom metadata
                issue-copyright-statement © The Author(s) 2018

                ScienceOpen disciplines: Environmental change
                Data availability:
                ScienceOpen disciplines: Environmental change

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