Modeling carbon sequestration under zero tillage at the regional scale. I. The effect of soil erosion

Zero tillage is recognized as a potential measure to sequester carbon dioxide in soils and to reduce CO2 emissions from arable lands. An up-scaling approach of the output of the Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model with the information system SLISYS-BW has been used to estimate the CO2-mitigation potential in the state of Baden-Württemberg (SW-Germany). The state territory of 35,742 km2 is subdivided into eight agro-ecological zones (AEZ), which have been further subdivided into a total of 3976 spatial response units. Annual CO2-mitigation rates where estimated from the changes in soil organic carbon content comparing 30 years simulations under conventional and zero tillage. Special attention was given to the influence of tillage practices on the losses of organic carbon through soil erosion, and consequently on the calculation of CO2-mitigation rates. Under conventional tillage, mean carbon losses through erosion in the AEZ were estimated to be up to 0.45 Mg C ha−1 a−1. The apparent CO2-mitigation rate for the conversion from conventional to zero tillage ranges from 0.08 to 1.82 Mg C ha−1 a−1 in the eight AEZ, if the carbon losses through soil erosion are included in the calculations. However, the higher carbon losses under conventional tillage compared to zero tillage are composed of both, losses through enhanced CO2 emissions, and losses through intensified soil erosion. The adjusted net CO2-mitigation rates of zero tillage, subtracting the reduced carbon losses through soil erosion, are between 0.07 and 1.27 Mg C ha−1 a−1 and the estimated net mitigation rate for the entire state amounts to 285 Gg C a−1. This equals to 1045 Gg CO2-equivalents per year with the cropping patterns in the reference year 2000. The results call attention to the necessity to revise those estimation methods for CO2-mitigation which are exclusively or predominantly based on the measurements of differential changes in total soil organic carbon without taking into account the tillage effects on carbon losses through soil erosion.