Soil Organic Carbon Mapping Cookbook
Publication year
Resource type
UNCCD Library
Material Type
ebook
ISBN
978-92-5-130440-2
The GSP Secretariat invited a group of experts to prepare the first edition of a Soil Organic Carbon Mapping Cookbook (FAO, 2017) as a comprehensible reference knowledge source to support the capacity development process.
The Global Soil Partnership, its Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS) launched a global endeavor to develop a Global Soil Organic Carbon map (GSOCMap) by the end of 2017, in support of the Sustainable Development Goal Indicator 15.3.1. The quality of soil carbon information at global level is still limited because much existing national information has not yet been shared. A precise and reliable global view on soil organic carbon (SOC) is needed under different UN conventions, such as the UN Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD), but especially as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). At national level, such data can be used as reference soil carbon stocks, with the aim to refine national greenhouse gas inventories, and to assess the sensitivity of soils to degradation and climate change.
The second edition of the cookbook provides generic methodologies and technical steps to produce SOC maps. This edition has been updated with knowledge and practical experiences gained during the implementation process of GSOCmap V1.0 throughout 2017. The cookbook includes step-by-step guidance for developing 1 km grids for SOC stocks, as well as for the preparation of local soil data, the compilation and preprocessing of ancillary spatial data sets, upscaling methodologies, and uncertainty assessment methods. Guidance is mainly specific to SOC data, but as this cookbook contains generic sections on soil grid development, it can be applicable to map various soil properties using digital soil mapping techniques.
The guidance focuses on the upscaling of national SOC stocks in order to produce the GSOCmap. Therefore, the cookbook supplements the GSP Guidelines for Sharing National Data/Information to Compile a Global Soil Organic Carbon (GSOC) Map (FAO and GSP, 2017a), providing technical guidelines to prepare
and evaluate spatial soil data sets.
The Global Soil Partnership, its Intergovernmental Technical Panel on Soils (ITPS) launched a global endeavor to develop a Global Soil Organic Carbon map (GSOCMap) by the end of 2017, in support of the Sustainable Development Goal Indicator 15.3.1. The quality of soil carbon information at global level is still limited because much existing national information has not yet been shared. A precise and reliable global view on soil organic carbon (SOC) is needed under different UN conventions, such as the UN Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD), but especially as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). At national level, such data can be used as reference soil carbon stocks, with the aim to refine national greenhouse gas inventories, and to assess the sensitivity of soils to degradation and climate change.
The second edition of the cookbook provides generic methodologies and technical steps to produce SOC maps. This edition has been updated with knowledge and practical experiences gained during the implementation process of GSOCmap V1.0 throughout 2017. The cookbook includes step-by-step guidance for developing 1 km grids for SOC stocks, as well as for the preparation of local soil data, the compilation and preprocessing of ancillary spatial data sets, upscaling methodologies, and uncertainty assessment methods. Guidance is mainly specific to SOC data, but as this cookbook contains generic sections on soil grid development, it can be applicable to map various soil properties using digital soil mapping techniques.
The guidance focuses on the upscaling of national SOC stocks in order to produce the GSOCmap. Therefore, the cookbook supplements the GSP Guidelines for Sharing National Data/Information to Compile a Global Soil Organic Carbon (GSOC) Map (FAO and GSP, 2017a), providing technical guidelines to prepare
and evaluate spatial soil data sets.
Keywords
soil organic carbon
mapping soil degradation
SDG 15.3
indicators
soil data
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