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Ambitious nature-based climate solutions programs could deliver benefits for biodiversity, communities, and the climate. Unfortunately, a lack of evidence about specific benefits from specific strategies prevents researchers and policymakers from confidently prescribing when and where they should be used.

The ground beneath our feet holds more carbon than the Earth's atmosphere and all its plants combined. Scientists are investigating how to keep it there.

This report from EDF helps guide through challenges involved in application of process-based models to measurement, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MMRV) schemes in large-scale contexts. It provides important context and recommendations for process-based model implementation in agricultural soil GHG and SOC projects to increase consistency, transparency, and confidence in this integral portion of the MMRV process.

Efforts to curb agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and increase soil carbon storage are picking up steam to help mitigate the impacts of climate change. To have maximum impact, we need ways to reliably quantify their outcomes.  Direct measurement of the impacts of climate smart agricultural practices are imperative to instill confidence, but they aren’t forward-looking …

Carbon markets and carbon monitoring programs track changes in cropland soil carbon stock over time to determine how agricultural management practices impact carbon storage in soil. Soil carbon stock is typically measured by taking soil samples prior to the adoption of a new farming practice, followed by additional sampling after the practice has been in …

We need scientifically robust and accessible ways to measure soil carbon to ensure that different practice changes deliver reliable results. This research article from Environmental Defense Fund highlights two best practices for measuring carbon in soil.

Paper co-authored by EDF scientists examines the relationship between soil organic matter and yield heterogeneity, studying its distribution between particulate organic matter (POM) and mineral associated organic matter (MAOM) at the sub-field scale within 9 farms located in the central United States.

Analysis co-authored by EDF reveals the potential to use empirical approaches to accurately quantify, at project scales, soil organic carbon stock responses to practice change.

Literature review co-authored by EDF scientists addresses the climate mitigation potential of organic soil amendments, including biostimulants and biopesticides.

Paper co-authored by EDF scientists addresses the critical need for scientists to play an active role in helping guide protocol development and to conduct relevant research on the voluntary carbon market for agricultural soil carbon sequestration.

The integrity of land-based credits in the voluntary carbon market has been historically uneven. Buyer confidence can only occur with high-integrity credits—in other words, assurance that credits represent documented, actual reductions, avoidance, or removal of GHGs that would otherwise not occur. This integrity needs to improve substantially for these types of investments to effectively reduce GHG emissions or remove them from the atmosphere in voluntary carbon markets.

Credits for soil carbon sequestration lack comparability and consistency. EDF and the Woodwell Climate Research Center reviewed the 12 published protocols used to generate soil carbon credits through carbon sequestration in croplands.