Modelado y cartografía del almacenamiento de carbono en los suelos de la República Argentina

GAITÁN, JUAN; NOSETTO, M D; ET AL.

Ciencia del Suelo

ASOCIACIÓN ARGENTINA DE LA CIENCIA DEL SUELO

Lugar: Buenos Aires; Año: 2025

0326-3169

The assessment of soil organic carbon stocks (SOC) is highly relevant considering that SOC is one of the main drivers of climate change mitigation and soil productivity. This studyu pdates the SOC storage map of Argentina for the 0-30 cm layer using a Digital Soil Mapping approach with the Random Forest algorithm. A total of 5,377 sites sampled between 2015 and 2022 were analyzed, employing 38 predictive variables related to climate, topography, soil properties, and vegetation. The total SOC storage was estimated at 13.19PgC, with an uncertainty range of 12.64-13.74 PgC. The mean SOC stock of Argentina was51.35 Mg ha⁻¹, with the highest values found in wetlands and forest lands. However, in terms of total SOC storage, grasslands account for 61% of the national SOC stock, followed by forest lands (23%), croplands (13%), and wetlands (3%). The model demonstrated solid Page 7 performance (R² = 0.73) and confirmed that temperature is the main controlling factor of SOC, followed by vegetation and soil properties. This map provides a baseline for assessing changes in SOC storage, which is essential for climate change mitigation policies and sustainable soil management. Its periodic updating will enable progress (or setbacks)tracking in international agreements and contribute to the fulfilment of Sustainable Development Goals. This requires generating new data through networks of permanent,long-term monitoring sites.