SUMMARY

• Main Authors: Ólafur Arnalds, Grétar Guðbergsson
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Key words; Andisols; carbon sequestration; climate change; deserts; reclamation; restoration. YFIRLIT Binding kolefnis í jarðvegi á uppgræðslusvæðum á Íslandi; Iceland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.598.5300; http://www.landbunadur.is/landbunadur/wgsamvef.nsf/8bbba2777ac88c4000256a89000a2ddb/661b2f86237984d300256de2003d16af/$file/bu13-oa.pdf

Iceland has extensive deserts and barren patches in spite of it’s humid environment. The soils of the deserts are sandy Andisols, with limited sources of macro-nutrients and low water holding capacity. Andisols have a general tendency to immobilize carbon, and undisturbed, fully vegetated Andisols in Ice-land often contain>40 kg C m–2, often to more than 1.5 m depth. The difference between soils of barren areas, with <1 kg C m–2 and undisturbed Andisols indicates that reclamation of degraded sites may have high potential for carbon sequestration. The objective of this research was to develop methods to determine carbon sequestration rates in soils in relation to reclamation of degraded land in Iceland and to verify sequestration rates for reclamation activities. Carbon was determined in soils of 33 reclamation areas of different age throughout Iceland. At many sites, adjacent non-reclaimed areas were also sampled for comparison. The results show that reclamation of Icelandic deserts results in an average sequestration rate in soils of 0.6 t C ha–1 yr–1, which is maintained>50 yrs. This number does not include sequestration in above-ground or belowground biomass, (0.01–0.5 t ha–1 yr–1), which is reported in a concurrent paper (Aradóttir et al., 2000). Soil carbon sequestration rates were highly variable. In some areas, sequestration rates slowed when plant succession was restrained ecological thresholds. It is important to determine these thresholds and find economic means to overcome them to promote carbon sequestration over longer periods. Results suggest that sequestration of carbon to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions can be monitored and verified in Iceland.