MITIGATION OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS IN SOME CULTIVATED MINERAL SOILS FROM ROMANIA

The effect of management practices lead to significant variations of the net C balance of agricultural soils, and in this paper is estimated the impact of long-term cultivation on the soil organic carbon stocks. This paper also evaluates the potential of carbon sequestration of mineral soils through management practices in temperate agricultural systems, under dry climate regime. For fulfilling of the objective of this study, the -stock-difference method- was used for estimating the soil organic carbon stocks between two points in time, t1 (2000) and t2 (2021). The results obtained showed that the evolution of SOC stocks during the 21 years period between 2000 and 2021 recorded significant increases in most of the investigated soils, with one exception where a decrease in SOC stock by aprox. 11 % was recorded. The highest increase in SOC stock was recorded in case of a Cambic Chernozem soil, where the SOC stock value from 2021 is 63% higher as compared with the SOC value from 2000. Also, this soil recorded the highest rate for annual change in carbon stock (1.4762 tC/ha), followed by Eutric Cambisol (1.4286 tC/ha), Chernozem (1.3810 tC/ha) and Fluvisol (1.0476 tC/ha). The presented results showed that the Cambic Chernozem has the highest potential for CO2 removal from the atmosphere with an annual rate of 5.41 tCO2/ha. Also, high potentials for CO2 sequestration with accumulation rates of 5.24 tCO2/ha and respectively 5.06 tCO2/ha have the Eutric Cambisol and Chernozem soils.