Wiltshire & Beckage (2023): Integrating climate change into projections of soil carbon sequestration from regenerative agriculture
Serge Wiltshire, Brian Beckage IN: PLOS Climate, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000130
Computational models can project how changes in land use and management will affect soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks over time, but these models usually assume an unchanging climate. The authors investigate how incorporating climate change projections affects carbon sequestration and SOC stocks. They apply the Rothamsted Carbon model (RothC) to study agricultural land use and management transitions in the U.S. state of Vermont, comparing several regenerative farming strategies, as well as afforestation, against business-as-usual. In 11 relatively-homogeneous Ecoregions within the study area, they run simulations for each land management scenario from 2022–2099, under both projected climate change and the static climate normal from 1991–2021.