Soil Organic Carbon (SOC)

Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) is one of the key indicators of soil health and a major component of the global carbon cycle. Depending on how they are managed, agricultural soils can act either as a source or as a sink of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Increasing SOC stocks in agricultural land is therefore considered one of the most cost-effective and widely applicable strategies for climate change mitigation, while also improving soil fertility, water retention and resilience to extreme weather events.

Within the LIFE ClimaMED project, a specific methodology and set of tools were developed for the quantification of SOC stock changes in Mediterranean agricultural land. The approach combines field sampling and laboratory analysis of soil organic carbon content with data on agricultural practices, such as tillage, organic amendments, crop rotation and residue management, that influence the rate at which carbon accumulates in or is lost from the soil.

The baseline SOC conditions of all fifteen pilot fields in Greece, as well as of the pilot areas in Italy, Spain and Cyprus, were assessed at the start of the project. This baseline serves as a reference point against which future changes in SOC stocks can be measured and evaluated, allowing the project to demonstrate the effect of specific agricultural practices on carbon sequestration over time.

The results of the SOC monitoring, together with the greenhouse gas emissions data collected through the project's LIDAR devices, feed into the Center of GHGs Monitoring and Management (CMM), the GIS-based web platform developed by ClimaMED, providing an integrated picture of the climate impact - both positive and negative - of agricultural activities at farm, regional and national level.