Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) Equilibrium and Model Initialisation Methods: an Application to the Rothamsted Carbon (RothC) Model

Summary

This paper addresses a fundamental challenge in applying the RothC soil carbon model: how to properly initialise SOC stocks and estimate equilibrium values for accurate long-term projections. The authors, drawing on Rothamsted's long-term experimental datasets, compare competing initialisation methods to guide practitioners in model application. The work suggests that initialisation choices substantially influence model outputs and has implications for carbon accounting in farming systems.

UK applicability

Directly applicable to UK soil carbon modelling and policy, as the RothC model is widely used in UK agricultural carbon accounting and the Rothamsted Long-Term Experiments provide the underlying data. The findings should inform practitioners applying RothC for carbon sequestration assessments in UK farming systems.

Key measures

Soil organic carbon pools, model equilibrium estimates, initialisation method accuracy, carbon balance predictions

Outcomes reported

The study examined methods for initialising soil organic carbon (SOC) in the RothC model and evaluated different approaches to estimating equilibrium SOC values. It assessed how model initialisation choices affect long-term carbon predictions in agricultural systems.

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