Abstract

Measurement of soil organic carbon (SOC) or other elements in air-dried soil samples leads to underestimation of mass fraction per unit dry soil (concentration) unless the residual water (RW) content is accounted for. However, RW measurements are time-consuming and costly and thus often neglected. The resulting bias can lead to dramatic erroneous results, especially when two differently treated datasets are compared. We therefore, derived pedotransfer functions to estimate residual water content in air-dried soil samples from: (i) SOC content, (ii) clay content and (iii) both variables together. The uncertainty of prediction decreased in the order (i)-(iii), with root mean squared deviation (RMSD) values of 0.64, 0.46 and 0.34% of RW content, respectively. These functions represent a potential step towards more harmonized and transparent SOC determination. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords

Residual water; Soil carbon; Pedotransfer function; Cost effective

Published in

Soil and Tillage Research
2015, Volume: 145, pages: 181-183
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

SLU Authors

• Poeplau, Christopher

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Eriksson, Jan

  • Department of Soil and Environment, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

• Kätterer, Thomas

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Soil Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.still.2014.09.021

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/63603