Multiple soil map comparison highlights challenges for predicting topsoil organic carbon concentration at national scale

Abstract

Soil organic carbon (SOC) concentration is the fundamental indicator of soil health, underpinning food production and climate change mitigation. SOC storage is highly sensitive to several dynamic environmental drivers, with approximately one third of soils degraded and losing carbon worldwide. Digital soil mapping illuminates where hotspots of SOC storage occur and where losses to the atmosphere are most likely. Yet, attempts to map SOC often disagree. Here we compare national scale SOC concentration map products to reveal agreement of data in mineral soils, with progressively poorer agreement in organo-mineral and organic soils. Divergences in map predictions from each other and survey data widen in the high SOC content land types we stratified. Given the disparities are highest in carbon rich soils, efforts are required to reduce these uncertainties to increase confidence in mapping SOC storage and predicting where change may be important at national to global scales. Our map comparison results could be used to identify SOC risk where concentrations are high and should be conserved, and where uncertainty is high and further monitoring should be targeted. Reducing inter-map uncertainty will rely on addressing statistical limitations and including covariates that capture convergence of physical factors that produce high SOC contents.