title: The impact of agricultural soil erosion on the global carbon cycle.
abstract: Agricultural soil erosion is thought to perturb the global carbon cycle, but estimates of its effect range from a source of 1 petagram per year(-1) to a sink of the same magnitude. By using caesium-137 and carbon inventory measurements from a large-scale survey, we found consistent evidence for an erosion-induced sink of atmospheric carbon equivalent to approximately 26% of the carbon transported by erosion. Based on this relationship, we estimated a global carbon sink of 0.12 (range 0.06 to 0.27) petagrams of carbon per year(-1) resulting from erosion in the world's agricultural landscapes. Our analysis directly challenges the view that agricultural erosion represents an important source or sink for atmospheric CO2.
authors.affiliation: Physical and Regional Geography Research Group, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium. kristof.vanoost@uclouvain.be
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authors.lastname: Van Oost
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authors.lastname: da Silva
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