Ledo, A., Hillier, J., Smith, P., Aguilera, E., Blagodatskiy, S., Brearley, F. Q., Datta, A., Diaz-Pines, E., Don, A., Dondini, M., Dunn, J., Feliciano, D. M., Liebig, M. A., Lang, R., Llorente, M., Lopes Zinn, Y., McNamara, N., Ogle, S., Qin, z., Rovira, P., Rowe R., Vicente-Vicente J.L., Whitaker, J., Yue, Q., Zerihun, A.

A global, empirical, harmonised dataset of soil organic carbon changes under perennial crops

in Nature, 13.05.2019

Peer Review , Sustainable Resource Management and Global Change

A global, unified dataset on Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) changes under perennial crops has not existed till now. We present a global, harmonised database on SOC change resulting from perennial crop cultivation. It contains information about 1605 paired-comparison empirical values (some of which are aggregated data) from 180 different peer-reviewed studies, 709 sites, on 58 different perennial crop types, from 32 countries in temperate, tropical and boreal areas; including species used for food, bioenergy and bio-products. The database also contains information on climate, soil characteristics, management and topography. This is the first such global compilation and will act as a baseline for SOC changes in perennial crops. It will be key to supporting global modelling of land use and carbon cycle feedbacks, and supporting agricultural policy development.