Thesis abstract:

«p»Over the past decades the soil has been studied extensively for its ability to store carbon and thereby contributing to a reduction of atmospheric CO2. Most of this research has been done on the organic fraction of soil carbon (SOC), whereas the potentially equally important inorganic carbon (SIC) stock has been largely ignored despite its esitmated global carbon content of around 750 Pg in the top meter of the soil. Inorganic carbon has been typically assumed to be stable, but climate change and better insights into human management of agricultural land are now revealing that also carbonates in soil can be remobilized, thus contributing to substantial CO2 exchanges with the atmosphere even at short time scales. However, the highly complex nature of the soil, including its biological, chemical and hydrological processes poses a great challenge for studying the SIC dynamics. By using a complex reaction network of coupled organic and inorganic biogeochemical and ecohydrological processes embedded in a general-purpose solver (BRTSim), I aim to produced global estimates of SIC stock changes and interactions with SOC under a changing climate and from anthropogenic practices, and its potential contribution to atmospheric carbon.«/p»