Soil erosion effects on soil organic carbon and an assessment within China

Abstract

Soil erosion is a widespread geological process with strong capabilities to entrap, transport and redistribute surface soil. It is important to grade erosion intensity and estimate eroded soil mass. On the other hand, soil organic carbon pool (SOC), as the largest terrestrial carbon content, is prone to be affected by soil erosion. Soil erosion redistributes surface soil over landscape, and changes the physical environmental conditions. The consequences are depletion of SOC in eroded regions, emission of carbon dioxide during transportation and input of extra SOC in deposited sites. This paper quantified the effects of soil erosion on soil organic carbon through following three steps: firstl..