Chapter A of
Soil-Carbon Storage and Inventory for the Continental United States

Data Compilation, Synthesis,
and Calculations Used for Organic-Carbon
Storage and Inventory Estimates for Mineral
Soils of the Mississippi River Basin

U.S. Geological Survey investigations of environmental controls on carbon cycling in soils and sediments of the Mississippi River Basin (MRB), an area of 3.3 × 106 square kilometers have produced an assessment tool for estimating the storage and inventory of soil organic carbon (SOC) by using soil-characterization data from Federal, State, academic, and literature sources. The methodology is based on the linkage of site-specific SOC data (pedon data) to the soil-association map units of the U.S. Department of Agriculture State Soil Geographic (STATSGO) and Soil Survey Geographic (SSURGO) digital soil databases in a geographic information system. The collective pedon database assembled from individual sources presently contains 7,321 pedon records representing 2,581 soil series. SOC storage, in kilograms per square meter, is calculated for each pedon at standard depth intervals from 0 to 10, 10 to 20, 20 to 50, and 50 to 100 centimeters. The site-specific storage estimates are then regionalized to produce national-scale (STATSGO) and county-scale (SSURGO) maps of SOC to a specified depth. Based on this methodology, the mean SOC storage for the top meter of mineral soil in the MRB is approximately 10 kg/m2, and the total inventory is approximately 32.3 Pg (1 petagram = 109 metric tons). This inventory is from 2.5 to 3 percent of the estimated global mineral SOC pool.

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U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/2004/1686a/index.html
For more information, contact Gary R. Buell or Helaine W. Markewich
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