Soil erosion and its impact on organic carbon storage in changing agricultural landscapes: A multi-scale analysis

Erosion-induced changes in soil organic carbon distribution (SOC) as a result of human activities have recently received considerable attention. Recent work done has described agricultural soils as dynamic systems that can change rapidly. Current methods to characterize the horizontal (across the earth surface) and vertical (with depth) variability at a regional scale are limited and lack the ability to link locally detailed assessments to larger scales. Key mechanisms to explain SOC distribution patterns need to be identified to come from point-scale process understanding to larger-scale dynamics. Here, we present and apply a new method postulating that soil redistribution is the main forcing for regional SOC distribution on cropland, and use topography to delimit zones of differing SOC distribution.