Effect of Land Use Change On Soil Organic Carbon Pool in Midwestern U.S.

Land use is a major determinant of soil organic carbon (SOC) pool at a certain location. Soils can be a source or sink of atmospheric carbon depending on the land use. This study shows the change in SOC pool if the whole cropland is converted to no-till agriculture in Midwestern U.S. (Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Michigan, and West Virginia). In this study, SOC pools were estimated for two different scenarios of land use. First, SOC pool was estimated for the entire crop land by using the legacy pedon dataset of the study area. Second, the SOC pool was projected for the croplands when the entire cropland is converted to no-till agriculture. For this purpose, the croplands were stratified into different major land resource areas and stratified cluster sampling was done in the no-till croplands. The SOC pool for entire croplands in no-till agriculture was estimated using a regression kriging approach. The difference between these two estimates is presented as the change in SOC pool due to conversion of croplands into no-till agriculture. The results will be presented in the SSSA meeting.