Mitigating Carbon Emissions Through Soil Stewardship: Comparative Insights Across Management Practices

Soils represent a critical leverage point for mitigating global warming, acting simultane-ously as major carbon reservoirs and active sources of greenhouse gas emissions under unsustainable management. This review synthesizes current evidence on soil steward-ship practices aimed at reducing carbon emissions and enhancing carbon sequestration. Comparative insights are provided across conventional mineral fertilization, organic amendments, and circular fertilization approaches based on agro-industrial by-products. The review integrates findings from field experiments, long-term trials, and life cycle as-sessment studies to evaluate the effects of different management practices on soil organic carbon dynamics, greenhouse gas fluxes, nutrient use efficiency, and soil biological func-tioning. Special emphasis is placed on the role of waste-derived fertilizers—such as com-posts, digestates, vermicompost—in promoting soil carbon stabilization while reducing the environmental burden associated with synthetic inputs. Evidence consistently indi-cates that soil stewardship strategies grounded in circular economy principles can lower net carbon footprints, improve soil resilience, and mitigate trade-offs between productivity and climate mitigation. By framing soil management within the context of global warm-ing mitigation, this review highlights the multifunctional role of soils as climate regula-tors and underscores the potential of agro-industrial waste valorization as a scalable pathway toward climate-smart and low-emission agricultural systems.