Droste, Nils and May, Wilhelm and Clough, Yann and Börjesson, Gunnar and Brady, Mark and Hedlund, Katarina
(2020).
Soil carbon insures arable crop production against increasing adverse weather due to climate change.
Environmental Research Letters. 15
, 124034
[Research article]
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Abstract
Intensification of arable crop production degrades soil health and production potential through loss of soil organic carbon. This, potentially, reduces agriculture's resilience to climate change and thus food security. Furthermore, the expected increase in frequency of adverse and extreme weather events due to climate change are likely to affect crop yields differently, depending on when in the growing season they occur. We show that soil carbon provides farmers with a natural insurance against climate change through a gain in yield stability and more resilient production. To do this, we combined yield observations from 12 sites and 54 years of Swedish long-term agricultural experiments with historical weather data. To account for heterogenous climate effects, we partitioned the growing season into four representative phases for two major cereal crops. Thereby, we provide evidence that higher soil carbon increases yield gains from favourable conditions and reduces yield losses due to adverse weather events and how this occurs over different stages of the growing season. However, agricultural management practices that restore the soil carbon stock, thus contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation, usually come at the cost of foregone yield for the farmer in the short term. To halt soil degradation and make arable crop production more resilient to climate change, we need agricultural policies that address the public benefits of soil conservation and restoration.
Authors/Creators: | Droste, Nils and May, Wilhelm and Clough, Yann and Börjesson, Gunnar and Brady, Mark and Hedlund, Katarina | ||||||
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Title: | Soil carbon insures arable crop production against increasing adverse weather due to climate change | ||||||
Series Name/Journal: | Environmental Research Letters | ||||||
Year of publishing : | 2020 | ||||||
Volume: | 15 | ||||||
Article number: | 124034 | ||||||
Number of Pages: | 13 | ||||||
ISSN: | 1748-9326 | ||||||
Language: | English | ||||||
Publication Type: | Research article | ||||||
Article category: | Scientific peer reviewed | ||||||
Version: | Published version | ||||||
Copyright: | Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0 | ||||||
Full Text Status: | Public | ||||||
Subjects: | (A) Swedish standard research categories 2011 > 4 Agricultural Sciences > 401 Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries > Soil Science (A) Swedish standard research categories 2011 > 1 Natural sciences > 105 Earth and Related Environmental Sciences > Climate Research | ||||||
Keywords: | soil organic carbon, soil biodiversity, arable crop production, climate change, agricultural long-term experiments | ||||||
URN:NBN: | urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-p-109151 | ||||||
Permanent URL: | http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-p-109151 | ||||||
Additional ID: |
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ID Code: | 22705 | ||||||
Faculty: | NJ - Fakulteten för naturresurser och jordbruksvetenskap | ||||||
Department: | (NL, NJ) > Dept. of Soil and Environment (S) > Dept. of Soil and Environment (NL, NJ) > Dept. of Economics | ||||||
Deposited By: | SLUpub Connector | ||||||
Deposited On: | 05 Mar 2021 12:43 | ||||||
Metadata Last Modified: | 05 Mar 2021 12:51 |
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