Land use-induced soil carbon loss in the dry tropics nearly offsets gains in northern lands
Soil carbon changes are difficult to measure globally, and global models are poorly constrained. Here, we propose a framework to map annual changes in soil carbon and litter (SOCL) as the difference between the net land CO<sub>2</sub> flux from atmospheric inversions and satellite-based maps of biomass changes. We show that SOCL accumulated globally at a rate of about 0.34 ± 0.30 ( ± 1 sigma) billion tonnes of carbon per year (PgC yr<sup>-</sup><sup>1</sup>) during 2011-2020. The largest SOCL sink is found in boreal regions (0.93 ± 0.45 PgC yr<sup>-</sup><sup>1</sup> in total) particularly in undisturbed peatlands and managed forests. The largest losses occur in the dry tropics (-0.50 ± 0.47 PgC yr<sup>-</sup><sup>1</sup>) and correspond with agricultural expansion from land use change, cropland management and grazing. By contrast, forests in the wet tropics act as a net soil carbon sink (0.32 ± 0.35 PgC yr<sup>-</sup><sup>1</sup>). Our findings highlight the large mitigation opportunities in the dry tropics to restore agricultural soil carbon.
Authors
- Frédéric Chevallier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4327-3813)
- Giacomo Grassi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0650-0391)
- Paul I. Palmer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1487-0969)
- Jinfeng Chang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4463-7778)
- Hui Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6454-8954)
- Pete Smith (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3784-1124)
- Songbai Hong (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0450-0817)
- Laibao Liu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9140-0509)
- Jean‐Pierre Wigneron (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5345-3618)
- Clément Albergel (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1095-2702)
- Yinon M. Bar‐On (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8477-609X)
- Panos Panagos (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1484-2738)
- Stephen A. Sitch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1821-8561)
- Clemens Schwingshackl (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4048-3011)
- Philippe Ciais (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8560-4943)
- Frédéric Frappart (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4661-8274)
- Lei Fan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1834-5088)
- Huan Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7472-0057)
- Xiaojun Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3831-4852)
- Kai Wang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6269-3517)
Institutions
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Southwest University (CN)
- Shenzhen University (CN)
- University of Aberdeen (GB)
- Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (FR)
- Peking University (CN)
- Ministry of Natural Resources (CN)
- University of Exeter (GB)
- Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (FR)
- Education University of Hong Kong (HK)
- Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement (FR)
- École Nationale Supérieure des Sciences Agronomiques de Bordeaux-Aquitaine (FR)
- Santé et Agroécologie du Vignoble (FR)
- European Centre for Space Applications and Telecommunications (GB)
- Joint Research Centre (IT)
- Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (FR)
- National Centre for Earth Observation (GB)
- Unité mixte de recherche Œnologie (FR)
- Southwest Jiaotong University (CN)
- Weizmann Institute of Science (IL)
- Zhejiang University (CN)
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
- University of Hong Kong (HK)
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-11-14
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-64929-3
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.37