Organization: Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Research Title: Soil Carbon Studies

Funding Level (millions of dollars):

FY94	1.5
FY95	1.5
FY96	1.5

Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (CENR) Component:
(a) Subcommittee: Global Change Subcommittee (100%)
(b) Environmental Issue: Global Climate Change
(c) Research Activity: System structure and function: Understanding (100%)

Organizational Component:
Soil Conservation Service
USDA, SCS, 12th & Independence Ave.
Washington, DC

Point of Contact:
John Kimble
Phone: 403-437-5363
E-Mail: kimble@nssc600.nssc.nrcs.usda.gov

Research Goals:
To reduce scientific uncertainty in the areas of climate and hydrologic systems and biogeochemical dynamics, which are very high science priority areas identified in the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) priority framework. The database will also support research in the ecological systems and dynamics and earth system history priority areas.

Research Description:
There are three components of the SCS Global Climate Change Program:

• Automated remote natural resource data collection of climatic information. (17%) A program to automate the collection of point soil moisture and temperature data to provide a uniform, reliable national data base of soil moisture and temperature associated with climate conditions. It uses proven meteor-burst technology to transmit remote site data to master stations and a central data base.
• Soil carbon studies. (58%) Includes soil maps and studies of soil carbon. There are several projects to make maps at various scales and to develop better estimates of the role and amount of soil carbon in global change processes. Soil carbon has a major influence on greenhouse gas emissions and investigations will be conducted on the sequestration of carbon in soil and/or loss of carbon under different management systems. Studies to find the different pools of soil carbon will be undertaken with others and will allow the separation of carbon into active, passive and slow release pools.
• Soil landscape models. (25%) Involves the testing and development of soil genesis models that will help in evaluating the impact of different climate change scenarios on soil properties and landscapes. Studies of paleosols and other process models relating all of the soil forming factors will be combined to help predict changes to soils and consequently nutrient cycling, hydrologic processes, desertification, plant productivity and succession, etc.

Program Interfaces:
The cited Soil Conservation Service research is part of the USDA Global Change Program which proposes the automation of soil climate and associated meteorological climate data collection and data management. The data are especially needed for the development of the Continental-Scale International Project (CSIP) model validation study of the Mississippi River Basin, which is part of the interagency Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWES) in which NOAA, NSF, DOI and NASA participate. Support will also be given to the USDA/ARS Global Change Water Resources and Agriculture Research Program on the physical, agricultural system (including crop production prediction) to environmental variables expected to be affected by global climate change.

Program Milestones:
Summer, 94: Completion of Soils report on the CPER - LTER in Colorado (Central Plains Experimental Range) and deep core drilling in MLRA 77 to look at paleosols and their relationship to past climate changes. Spring, 95: Establish an on-line data base based on programs set up to evaluate data and quality control checks. Summer, 95: Carbon map of North America completed (jointly with Mexico and Canada) and test project to measure effective CRP on carbon storage under way jointly with ARS. Fall, 95: Updated data base for use by modelers on carbon storage and develop in conjunction with university groups procedures to give a better fractionation of carbon.

Policy Payoffs:
(i) Successful automation of soil climate and associated meteorological climate data collection and data management will be a significant contribution to collaborative efforts among other agencies and to the network of international Agriculture Research Centers; (ii) The soil genesis and morphology modeling can be applied to predictions of climate change impacts on soil organic carbon and crop productivity along climatic gradients; and (iii) The data can also be used to validate and improve computer simulation models describing soil physics, chemistry, biology, and cumulative interaction effects, as well as wind erosion and water quality.