login

Soil Carbon Stocks of the Brazilian Amazon Basin

Soil Science Society of America JournalPublished 1 January 1995
Jener Leite de Moraes, Carlos Clemente Cerri, Jerry M. Melillo, David W. Kicklighter, Christopher Neill, David L. Skole
Citations215
SJR quartileQ2
SJR score0.79
SNIP0.90

Abstract

Abstract We determined stocks of C and N for soils under undisturbed vegetation across the Brazilian Amazon Basin based on 1162 soil profiles of the RADAMBRASIL survey and a digitized Brazilian soil survey map. Mean basin soil C density was 10.3 kg C m −2 . Forty‐seven petagrams C and 4.4 Pg N were contained in the top 1 m of soil. Forty‐five percent of total basin soil C (21 Pg C) and 41% of total soil N (1.8 Pg N) were contained in the top 20 cm across a ≈ 5 000 000‐km 2 area. Mean C/N ratio for the basin to a depth of 1 m was 10.7. Because these data represent sites with forest vegetation in the absence of significant disturbances, they represent a valuable baseline for evaluating the effects of land‐use changes on soil C stocks in the Amazon Basin.

Keywords

Agricultural and Biological SciencesEnvironmental Science