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State/County-Level GHG Mitigation on Agricultural Lands
IOWA
This project was funded by a grant from the US Department of Energy and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). This research team included individuals from Colorado State University Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, NRCS Cooperating Scientists and the Iowa Conservation Partners including; Iowa NRCS, Iowa Soil and Water Conservation Districts, Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the National Association of Conservation Districts. The Phase I study was initiated in 1997 and it was estimated that conservation practices were sequestering 2.3 million metric tonnes of carbon per year. It was also ascertained from the Phase I study that local land managers wanted additional information about C sequestration, and local conservation districts were willing to report any C sequestered due to conservation practices to the US Department of Energy. The Phase II study was started in 1998 and involved all 99 counties. This approach of involving every county within a state had never been attempted for assessing the impacts of management on soil carbon. A new survey instrument, called the Carbon Sequestration Rural Appraisal (CSRA), was designed, tested and then implemented in each county to collect local data and improve communications between the local land managers and the research team. This local data provided additional inputs into the Century Model that were not available in previously published databases, and refined the output for the individual counties and the soils and crop/tillage systems within each county. Century estimates for 203,000 different scenarios showing the C changes are now available in an Access database. The Phase II assessment for Iowa suggests that agricultural soils are currently (based on 1998 data) sequestering 3.1 million metric tonnes of carbon per year (equivalent to 11 million metric tonnes of CO2 per year). The project was completed in March 2001, and the final report is available on this page.
Final Report - March, 2001
Table of contents
Project
Project Authority
Citation
Executive Summary
Background
Objectives and Outcomes
Assessment Procedure
Modeling Soil Organic Matter
Phase I: Methodology
Phase I: Results
Phase II: Methodology
Phase II: Results
Impacts
DOE Reporting
C Sequestration Rates
For Conservation Practices
Presentations, Papers And
Resulting Public Awareness
Data Availability
Recommendations For Further Work
Conclusions
References
Acknowledgments
Appendix A: CSRA Data Sheets
Appendix B: County Crop Histories
And Drainage Dates
Appendix C: 1998 C Sequestered
By Conservation Practice
Appendix D: Iowa Carbon Potentials
Database User Instructions
Appendix E: Public Outreach
Download full report here
MS Word (.doc) format - 35 Mb
Adobe (.pdf) format - 1.5 Mb
Download 1997 or 2000 Access database here
(each Zip file includes Powerpoint instructions)
1997 version
2000 version
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