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The Increase of Soil Organic Matter Reduces Global Warming, Myth or Reality?
Version 1
: Received: 3 December 2020 / Approved: 4 December 2020 / Online: 4 December 2020 (11:11:47 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Navarro-Pedreño, J.; Almendro-Candel, M.B.; Zorpas, A.A. The Increase of Soil Organic Matter Reduces Global Warming, Myth or Reality? Sci 2021, 3, 18. Navarro-Pedreño, J.; Almendro-Candel, M.B.; Zorpas, A.A. The Increase of Soil Organic Matter Reduces Global Warming, Myth or Reality? Sci 2021, 3, 18.
Abstract
The soil has lost organic matter in the past centuries. Adding organic matter to soils is one of the management practices applied to recover the levels of soil carbon of the past. Is it a good practice to reduce global warming? In fact, one of the practices promoted to combat climate change is increasing soil organic matter. However, the addition of organic residues to the soil could facilitate the liberation of CO2 and wastes could also have no positive effects on soil properties. In this sense, what it is important is: a) to know which is the expected effect of the organic matter added to the soil; b) how this application alters the soil processes; c) which are the management practices that should be applied; d) how much is the real amount of carbon sequester by the soil and; e) the balance at short and long period after the application of the organic matter. The adequate strategy should be to favour the increment of biologically stabilized soil organic matter considering medium and long time. However, it is necessary to adapt the strategies to the local environmental conditions.
Keywords
carbon stock; climate change; humus; organic wastes; soil management
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Soil Science
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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