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Science 26 October 2007:
Vol. 318. no. 5850, pp. 626 - 629
DOI: 10.1126/science.1145724
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Reports

The Impact of Agricultural Soil Erosion on the Global Carbon Cycle

K. Van Oost,1*{dagger}{ddagger} T. A. Quine,2* G. Govers,1 S. De Gryze,3 J. Six,3 J. W. Harden,4 J. C. Ritchie,5 G. W. McCarty,5 G. Heckrath,6 C. Kosmas,7 J. V. Giraldez,8 J. R. Marques da Silva,9 R. Merckx10

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.

1 Physical and Regional Geography Research Group, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium.
2 Department of Geography, University of Exeter, EX4 4RJ Exeter, UK.
3 Department of Plant Sciences, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
4 U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA.
5 U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory, Beltsville, MD 20705–2350, USA.
6 Department of Agroecology and Environment, Research Centre Foulum, University of Aarhus, 8830 Tjele, Denmark.
7 Laboratory of Soils and Agricultural Chemistry, Agricultural University of Athens, 11855 Athens, Greece.
8 Department of Agronomy, University of Cordoba, 14080 Cordoba, Spain.
9 Instituto de Ciências Agrárias Mediterrânicas, Department of Rural Engineering, University of Évora, Évora, Portugal.
10 Division of Soil and Water Management, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 3001 Heverlee, Belgium.

* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} Present address: Département de Géographie, Université Catholique de Louvain, 1048 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.

{ddagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: kristof.vanoost{at}uclouvain.be

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)