Soil carbon storage in grassland under different management and climate change scenarios

• Forschungsstelle: COST
• Projektnummer: C04.0253
• Projekttitel Englisch: Soil carbon storage in grassland under different management and climate change scenarios

Schlüsselwörter (Englisch)

modelling; grassland; soil carbon; grass/clover dynamics; climate change

Forschungsprogramme (Englisch)

COST-Action 627 - Carbon Storage in European grasslands

Kurzbeschreibung (Englisch)

The aim of this project is to expand the mechanistic Pasture Simulation Model (PaSim) to dynamically simulate clover/grass fractions in managed grasslands, and to simulate associated changes in greenhouse gas fluxes and soil carbon sequestration. Management of the clover fraction in grasslands is a potential practical measure to mitigate the greenhouse effect. The expanded model will be used to quantify this potential for different management practices and site conditions, applying state-of-the-art climate change projections.

Partner und Internationale Organisationen (Englisch)

AT, BE, CZ, DK, FI, FR, DE, HU, IS, IE, IT, LT, NO, SI, ES, CH, UK

Abstract (Englisch)

The overall aim of the project was to apply a model of grass/clover interactions to study the effects of species composition on the long-term accumulation of soil organic carbon in productive grasslands. The first year of research was focused on the model development and testing. These activities were summarized in the Intermediate Report submitted to the State Secretariat for Education and Research in March 2006. The last three months of the project were dedicated to the model application. Scenarios for the transient evolution of climate during the 21st century were obtained from activities carried out by our group in the framework of the National Center of Competence in Research on Climate (NCCR Climate). The results reveal that in grass monocultures only little additional accumulation of soil organic matter takes place, despite the overall increase in the system productivity induced by elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations and the extension of the vegetation period. In mixed swards, on the other hand, an additional storage of soil organic matter of the order of 10 to 15 % is possible. It appears that in swards with variable composition, the higher N-demand of grass is more than compensated by the increase in the N supply by the clover.

Datenbankreferenzen (Englisch)

Swiss Database: COST-DB of the State Secretariat for Education and Research Hallwylstrasse 4 CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland Tel. [phone] Swiss Project-Number: C04.0253