Reconciling historic and contemporary sampling of soil organic carbon stocks: Does sampling approach create systematic bias?
Accurate determination of soil organic carbon stocks is important to track long-term change due to land management or land use, for greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory reporting, and carbon trading associated with these changes. Typically, these stock measurements are carried out, using either horizon-ba...
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Elsevier
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Geoderma |
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| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706125001764 |
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| author | Sam McNally Jack Pronger Jordan Goodrich Kara Allen Scott Graham Stephen McNeill Pierre Roudier Tim Norris Alice Barnett Louis Schipper Paul Mudge |
| author_facet | Sam McNally Jack Pronger Jordan Goodrich Kara Allen Scott Graham Stephen McNeill Pierre Roudier Tim Norris Alice Barnett Louis Schipper Paul Mudge |
| author_sort | Sam McNally |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Accurate determination of soil organic carbon stocks is important to track long-term change due to land management or land use, for greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory reporting, and carbon trading associated with these changes. Typically, these stock measurements are carried out, using either horizon-based or continuous core sampling, to collect soil bulk density, organic carbon content and depth of the desired layer. Differences in methods also relate to the soil organic carbon (SOC) collection via a core or a horizon scraping. There is also growing consensus that stocks should be calculated on an equivalent soil mass basis to reduce error in measurements and account for biases related to changes in bulk density. Here we quantify SOC stocks measured using four different field sampling methods (variations of depth-based and horizon-based sampling using pits, or continuous core sampling). We then compare the results using either: i) a fixed-depth; or ii) an equivalent soil mass calculation (ESM) approach. Our results demonstrate that there was no bias associated with depth-based or horizon-based methods, where bulk density was determined in the centre of each layer, and carbon content across the full horizon, compared to a core sampling method where both bulk density and SOC content were determined continuously for the whole profile in fixed-depth increments. While there are small differences between methods when fixed depth sampling was used, these differences can be substantially reduced when using ESM. Reprocessing of SOC stock data using ESM should be carried out to reconcile any potential differences caused between sampling methods in historic and contemporary datasets. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-8a8da4864a4a4e80b76c8839e8b8ecbd |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 1872-6259 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-06-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
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| series | Geoderma |
| spelling | doaj-art-8a8da4864a4a4e80b76c8839e8b8ecbd2025-08-20T03:08:21ZengElsevierGeoderma1872-62592025-06-0145811733810.1016/j.geoderma.2025.117338Reconciling historic and contemporary sampling of soil organic carbon stocks: Does sampling approach create systematic bias?Sam McNally0Jack Pronger1Jordan Goodrich2Kara Allen3Scott Graham4Stephen McNeill5Pierre Roudier6Tim Norris7Alice Barnett8Louis Schipper9Paul Mudge10Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, PO Box 69040, Lincoln 7640, New Zealand; Corresponding author.Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, Private Bag 3127, Hamilton 3240, New ZealandManaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, Private Bag 3127, Hamilton 3240, New ZealandManaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, PO Box 69040, Lincoln 7640, New ZealandManaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, PO Box 69040, Lincoln 7640, New ZealandManaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, PO Box 69040, Lincoln 7640, New ZealandManaaki Whenua - Landcare Research, Private Bag 11052, Palmerston North 4442, New ZealandWaikato Regional Council, Private Bag 3038, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand; University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New ZealandUniversity of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New ZealandUniversity of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New ZealandManaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, Private Bag 3127, Hamilton 3240, New ZealandAccurate determination of soil organic carbon stocks is important to track long-term change due to land management or land use, for greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory reporting, and carbon trading associated with these changes. Typically, these stock measurements are carried out, using either horizon-based or continuous core sampling, to collect soil bulk density, organic carbon content and depth of the desired layer. Differences in methods also relate to the soil organic carbon (SOC) collection via a core or a horizon scraping. There is also growing consensus that stocks should be calculated on an equivalent soil mass basis to reduce error in measurements and account for biases related to changes in bulk density. Here we quantify SOC stocks measured using four different field sampling methods (variations of depth-based and horizon-based sampling using pits, or continuous core sampling). We then compare the results using either: i) a fixed-depth; or ii) an equivalent soil mass calculation (ESM) approach. Our results demonstrate that there was no bias associated with depth-based or horizon-based methods, where bulk density was determined in the centre of each layer, and carbon content across the full horizon, compared to a core sampling method where both bulk density and SOC content were determined continuously for the whole profile in fixed-depth increments. While there are small differences between methods when fixed depth sampling was used, these differences can be substantially reduced when using ESM. Reprocessing of SOC stock data using ESM should be carried out to reconcile any potential differences caused between sampling methods in historic and contemporary datasets.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706125001764Soil organic carbon stocksSOC stocksSOC samplingBulk densityEquivalent soil massNew Zealand |
| spellingShingle | Sam McNally Jack Pronger Jordan Goodrich Kara Allen Scott Graham Stephen McNeill Pierre Roudier Tim Norris Alice Barnett Louis Schipper Paul Mudge Reconciling historic and contemporary sampling of soil organic carbon stocks: Does sampling approach create systematic bias? Geoderma Soil organic carbon stocks SOC stocks SOC sampling Bulk density Equivalent soil mass New Zealand |
| title | Reconciling historic and contemporary sampling of soil organic carbon stocks: Does sampling approach create systematic bias? |
| title_full | Reconciling historic and contemporary sampling of soil organic carbon stocks: Does sampling approach create systematic bias? |
| title_fullStr | Reconciling historic and contemporary sampling of soil organic carbon stocks: Does sampling approach create systematic bias? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Reconciling historic and contemporary sampling of soil organic carbon stocks: Does sampling approach create systematic bias? |
| title_short | Reconciling historic and contemporary sampling of soil organic carbon stocks: Does sampling approach create systematic bias? |
| title_sort | reconciling historic and contemporary sampling of soil organic carbon stocks does sampling approach create systematic bias |
| topic | Soil organic carbon stocks SOC stocks SOC sampling Bulk density Equivalent soil mass New Zealand |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016706125001764 |
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