Main collaborators:
V.Naipal (Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et l’Environnement)
B.Guenet (French National Centre for Scientific Research)
P.Ciais (Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et l’Environnement) R.Lauerwald (University of Exeter) K.Van Oost (Université Catholique de Louvain)
Project goal:
Soil erosion by rainfall is currently accelerated globally by human activities, such as deforestation and agricultural practices. Accelerated soil erosion can trigger large sediment fluxes between land and ocean. In this way accelerated soil erosion can alter the dynamics of biogeochemical elements on land and in the ocean. These anthropogenic modifications to the biogeochemical cycles are unknown at the global scale. It is, therefore, important to study the interaction between sediment dynamics and the global biogeochemical cycle’s at large spatial scales.
In this study we aim to estimate the lateral transport of soil carbon and consequent land-atmosphere CO2 fluxes on the global scale. We use existing soil redistribution and land surface models. The results of this study can give us a hint on the scale of the biogeochemical fluxes due to soil erosion and help us understand the role of soil erosion as a net sink or source of atmospheric CO2.
Present-day global soil erosion rates on 5 arc-minute resolution (~10km) based on the Adjusted RUSLE model (Naipal et al., 2015). Units: t/ha/y
Global Soil Erosion 