the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 22 Aug 2023
A millennium of arable land use – the long-term impact of water and tillage erosion on landscape-scale carbon dynamics
Abstract. In the last decades, soils and their agricultural management have received great scientific and political attention due to their associated potential to act as sink of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). It is questioned if soil redistribution processes affect this potential CO2 sink function, as agricultural management has a strong potential to accelerate soil redistribution. Most studies analysing the effect of soil redistribution upon soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics focus on water erosion, analyse only relatively small catchments and relatively short timespans of several years to decades. The aim of this study is to widen the perspective by including tillage erosion as another important driver of soil redistribution and performing a model-based analysis in a 200 km2-sized arable region of north-eastern Germany for the period since the conversion from forest to arable land (approx. 1000 years ago). Therefore, a modified version of the spatially explicit soil redistribution and carbon (C) turnover model SPEROS-C was applied to simulate lateral soil and SOC redistribution and SOC turnover (spatial resolution 5 m x 5 m). The model parameterisation uncertainty was estimated by simulating different realisations of the development of agricultural management over the past millennium. The results indicate that in young moraine areas, which are relatively dry but intensively used for agriculture for centuries, SOC patterns and SOC dynamics are substantially affected by tillage-induced soil redistribution processes. To understand the landscape scale effect of these redistribution processes on SOC dynamics it is essential to account for long-term changes following land conversion, as typical soil-erosion induced processes, e.g. dynamic replacement, only take place after former forest soils reach a new equilibrium following conversion. Overall, it was estimated that after 1000 years of arable land use SOC redistribution by tillage and water erosion results in a landscape scale C sink of up to 0.66 ‰ per year.
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Notice on discussion status
The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.
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Preprint
(11989 KB)
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The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.
- Preprint
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- Final revised paper
Journal article(s) based on this preprint
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2023-1400', Marijn van der Meij, 18 Sep 2023
Öttl and colleagues present a very comprehensive modelling study on the effects of soil redistribution on soil organic carbon stocks over millennial timescales. The manuscript provides detailed information on changes in agricultural practices, erosion intensities and the effect on SOC fluxes over this period.
The authors simulate a large variety of modelling scenarios, with varying erosion intensities and SOC dynamics. I think this is one of the first times that such a sensitivity analysis is performed in soil-landscape evolution studies. I’m impressed with the amount and quality of the work from the authors, but I have two main concerns which should be addressed before the paper can be published. These relate to the structure of the manuscript and missing information on certain data and definitions.
I detailed these concerns below and added more explanation and additional smaller comments in the attached PDF.
With best regards,
Marijn van der Meij
Structure of the manuscript
I feel that a clear structure is missing in parts of the manuscript, which makes it difficult to understand what is presented. With a revision of the structure, this should be easy to improve. Examples are
- the Methods section, where inputs, parameters, calibrations and justifications are presented in a mixed manner;
- The Results section, where a logical order of the results is missing;
- A missing overview of all the different scenarios that have been simulated. For example, only in the Results and Discussion it becomes clear that there are also simulations with and without deep C burial. A table with all scenarios would be helpful here.
Missing information
When reading the manuscript, I found several terms, data sources and modelling settings that were not introduced in the text. Examples are:
- The definition of a heavily eroded soil, both for the classification from remote sensing and in the model results (line 285, Section 3.1);
- The SOC-depth profile from forest soils that were used as initial condition (Fig. 3). This data is not introduced in the text;
- The absence of updating the topography after soil redistribution. This is mentioned for the first time in Section 4.4.1. I was surprised this was not included, as it has a big impact on erosion and SOC dynamics over 1000 years and should be relatively easy to include;
- A Discussion on how the size of the simulated landscape affects the model results. In other words, what are the benefits of simulating the entire Quillow catchment instead of the test sites?
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AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Lena Katharina Öttl, 13 Dec 2023
Dear Marijn,
Thank you very much for your comments, we highly appreciated you taking the time to look at the manuscript. We believe the suggestions will highly improve our manuscript!
Please find a detailed response to your general comments in the supplement.
With thanks and best wishes,
Lena Katharina Öttl (on behalf of the co-authors)
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RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2023-1400', Anonymous Referee #2, 07 Nov 2023
Öttl et al. explored the long-term impact of water and tillage erosion on landscape-scale carbon dynamics based on a modified version of the spatially explicit soil redistribution and carbon (C) turnover model SPEROS-C, moreover, the model parameterisation uncertainty was estimated. The results indicate that in young moraine areas, SOC patterns and dynamics are substantially affected by tillage-induced soil redistribution processes, and it was estimated that after 1000 years of arable land use, SOC redistribution by tillage and water erosion results in a landscape-scale C sink of up to 0.66‰ per year. The MS is well-written and should be of interest to readers of SOIL. I have two suggestions that may improve the manuscript.
First, more details should be provided in Methods, so the readers are easily able to understand the paper, e.g., how the data was obtained and the models constructed.
Second, in Figure 6, while a significant correlation was observed, however, there are still spaces to improve prediction accuracy (R2). Moreover, if the data is suitable for regression analysis? e.g., if the residuals of the regression line are normally distributed?
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1400-RC2 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC2', Lena Katharina Öttl, 13 Dec 2023
Dear reviewer,
Many thanks for taking the time to review our manuscript. We highly appreciated your suggestions, which, along with the comments from the other reviewer, will improve our manuscript.
Please find our response in the supplement.
With thanks and best wishes,
Lena Katharina Öttl (on behalf of the co-authors)
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AC1: 'Reply on RC2', Lena Katharina Öttl, 13 Dec 2023
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
-
RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2023-1400', Marijn van der Meij, 18 Sep 2023
Öttl and colleagues present a very comprehensive modelling study on the effects of soil redistribution on soil organic carbon stocks over millennial timescales. The manuscript provides detailed information on changes in agricultural practices, erosion intensities and the effect on SOC fluxes over this period.
The authors simulate a large variety of modelling scenarios, with varying erosion intensities and SOC dynamics. I think this is one of the first times that such a sensitivity analysis is performed in soil-landscape evolution studies. I’m impressed with the amount and quality of the work from the authors, but I have two main concerns which should be addressed before the paper can be published. These relate to the structure of the manuscript and missing information on certain data and definitions.
I detailed these concerns below and added more explanation and additional smaller comments in the attached PDF.
With best regards,
Marijn van der Meij
Structure of the manuscript
I feel that a clear structure is missing in parts of the manuscript, which makes it difficult to understand what is presented. With a revision of the structure, this should be easy to improve. Examples are
- the Methods section, where inputs, parameters, calibrations and justifications are presented in a mixed manner;
- The Results section, where a logical order of the results is missing;
- A missing overview of all the different scenarios that have been simulated. For example, only in the Results and Discussion it becomes clear that there are also simulations with and without deep C burial. A table with all scenarios would be helpful here.
Missing information
When reading the manuscript, I found several terms, data sources and modelling settings that were not introduced in the text. Examples are:
- The definition of a heavily eroded soil, both for the classification from remote sensing and in the model results (line 285, Section 3.1);
- The SOC-depth profile from forest soils that were used as initial condition (Fig. 3). This data is not introduced in the text;
- The absence of updating the topography after soil redistribution. This is mentioned for the first time in Section 4.4.1. I was surprised this was not included, as it has a big impact on erosion and SOC dynamics over 1000 years and should be relatively easy to include;
- A Discussion on how the size of the simulated landscape affects the model results. In other words, what are the benefits of simulating the entire Quillow catchment instead of the test sites?
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Lena Katharina Öttl, 13 Dec 2023
Dear Marijn,
Thank you very much for your comments, we highly appreciated you taking the time to look at the manuscript. We believe the suggestions will highly improve our manuscript!
Please find a detailed response to your general comments in the supplement.
With thanks and best wishes,
Lena Katharina Öttl (on behalf of the co-authors)
-
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2023-1400', Anonymous Referee #2, 07 Nov 2023
Öttl et al. explored the long-term impact of water and tillage erosion on landscape-scale carbon dynamics based on a modified version of the spatially explicit soil redistribution and carbon (C) turnover model SPEROS-C, moreover, the model parameterisation uncertainty was estimated. The results indicate that in young moraine areas, SOC patterns and dynamics are substantially affected by tillage-induced soil redistribution processes, and it was estimated that after 1000 years of arable land use, SOC redistribution by tillage and water erosion results in a landscape-scale C sink of up to 0.66‰ per year. The MS is well-written and should be of interest to readers of SOIL. I have two suggestions that may improve the manuscript.
First, more details should be provided in Methods, so the readers are easily able to understand the paper, e.g., how the data was obtained and the models constructed.
Second, in Figure 6, while a significant correlation was observed, however, there are still spaces to improve prediction accuracy (R2). Moreover, if the data is suitable for regression analysis? e.g., if the residuals of the regression line are normally distributed?
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-1400-RC2 -
AC1: 'Reply on RC2', Lena Katharina Öttl, 13 Dec 2023
Dear reviewer,
Many thanks for taking the time to review our manuscript. We highly appreciated your suggestions, which, along with the comments from the other reviewer, will improve our manuscript.
Please find our response in the supplement.
With thanks and best wishes,
Lena Katharina Öttl (on behalf of the co-authors)
-
AC1: 'Reply on RC2', Lena Katharina Öttl, 13 Dec 2023
Peer review completion
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Lena Katharina Öttl
Florian Wilken
Anna Juřicová
Pedro V. G. Batista
Peter Fiener
The requested preprint has a corresponding peer-reviewed final revised paper. You are encouraged to refer to the final revised version.
- Preprint
(11989 KB) - Metadata XML