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With carbon as its main component, soil organic matter is crucial to soil health and fertility, water infiltration and retention and food production. Conserving and restoring soils, as a major carbon storage system, is critical for both sustainable agriculture and mitigating climate change. FAO, marking World Soil Day, launched a comprehensive global map showing the amount of carbon stocks in the soil.

StockSnap via pixabay
The world's soils act as the largest terrestrial carbon sink, reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Intensifying this role could significantly offset the rapid rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In a historic decision on agriculture, the recent climate change conference in Bonn (COP23) recognised the need for improved soil carbon, soil health and soil fertility.

The Global Soil Organic Carbon Map, illustrating the amount of soil organic carbon stock in the first 30cm of soil, reveals natural areas with high carbon storage that require its conservation, as well as those regions where there is the possibility for further sequestration. This information can prove a powerful tool to guide decision-making on practices that aim to preserve and increase the current soil carbon stocks, helping win the fight against climate change.


Managing soils to protect carbon-rich soils and restore those degraded

The map shows that globally, the first 30cm of soil contains around 680 billion tonnes of carbon - almost double the amount present in our atmosphere. This is a significant amount compared with the carbon stored in the whole vegetation (560 billion tonnes).

More than 60% of the 680 billion tonnes of carbon is found in ten countries (Russia, Canada, USA, China, Brazil, Indonesia, Australia, Argentine, Kazakhstan and the Democratic Republic of Congo). This means that actions should be implemented towards protecting these natural carbon-rich soils to avoid emissions to the atmosphere.


Increasing carbon content in soils to raise yields

Soils with high organic carbon content are likely to be more productive, better able to purify water and provide plants with optimal moisture conditions. The water stored in soil serves as the source for 90% of the world's agricultural production and represents about 65%of fresh water.


Participatory process


Facts and figures about soil

• Through sustainable soil management, we could produce up to 58% more food. Soil preservation is essential for Zero Hunger world. 95% of food is produced on our soils.

• Worldwide, nearly 80% of the average calories consumed per person comes from crops directly grown in the soil.

• It can take up to 1,000 years to form 1cm of soil.

• Soils can sequester around 20,000 megatonnes of carbon in 25 years, more than 10% of the greenhouse gas emissions


