Global soil organic carbon assessment

Soil carbon is a key component of functional ecosystems and crucial for food, soil, water and energy security. Climate change and altered land-use are having a great impact on soils. The influence of these factors creates a dynamic feedback between soil and the environment. There is a crucial need to evaluate the responses of soil to global environmental change at large spatial scales that occur along natural environmental gradients over decadal timescales. This work provides a suite of new data on global soil change which will uniquely utilize the world’s prior investment in soil data infrastructure. Here we attempt a comprehensive global space–time assessment of soil carbon dynamics in different ecoregions of the world accounting for impacts of climate change and other environmental factors.