Carbon storage in the soils and vegetation of contrasting land uses in northern New South Wales, Australia
Rick Young A D , Brian R Wilson B , Malem McLeod A and Clair Alston CA NSW Department of Primary Industries, Tamworth Agricultural Institute, RMB 944, Calala Lane, Tamworth, NSW 2340, Australia.
B NSW Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural Resources, PO Box U245, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia.
C School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW 2308, Australia.
D Corresponding author. Email: rick.young@dpi.nsw.gov.au
Australian Journal of Soil Research 43(1) 21-31 https://doi.org/10.1071/SR04032
Submitted: 9 March 2004 Accepted: 23 September 2004 Published: 14 February 2005
Abstract
The organic carbon stock in biomass and soil profiles sampled from nearby paddocks with different land-use histories was estimated at 7 sites in the upper Liverpool Plains catchment and the Manilla district of north-western New South Wales, Australia. The distribution of soil carbon concentrations over a depth of 2 m was significantly affected by site and land use. Continuous cultivation and cropping over ≥20 years significantly depleted carbon concentrations compared with grassy woodlands in the surface 0.20 m at all sites and to a depth of 0.60 m at 3 sites. Depth of sampling (0–0.20 v. 0–1.0 m) significantly affected the differences between land uses at most sites regarding estimates of the stock of soil carbon. These results show that differences in soil carbon concentrations and stock size do not remain constant with depth between contrasting land uses. However, comparisons between land uses of the total amount of carbon stored were dominated by the number of trees per ha and the size of the trees in grassy woodlands. The implications of these results for carbon accounting are discussed.
Acknowledgments
We thank Brian Willoughby for so competently operating the soil coring rig over sometimes difficult terrain, landholders for access to their properties and records, Sean Murphy for soils data from the Manilla sites and Yin Chan, Brendan George, Bob Martin, and 3 anonymous referees for comments on the draft manuscript. We acknowledge funding from the Grains Research and Development Corporation.
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