Kenji Fujisaki published a DATA paper into Scientific DATA journal

INRAE and CNRS coordinated the work of an international team to build a database of soil organic carbon stocks in agricultural soils under temperate climates. The scientists compiled, harmonised and completed data from 34 long‑term agronomic sites. This unprecedented open‑access database, published in Scientific Data, brings together more than 1,300 measurements of soil organic carbon stocks from agricultural sites in Europe, Australia, North America and South America.

This dataset represents a major tool for developing and calibrating simulation models of soil‑carbon stock dynamics and for designing appropriate public policies. The researchers also developed a standardised format and common methodology for measuring carbon stocks, enabling additional sites to join the database.

Article summary:

Soil organic carbon (SOC) models are essential for understanding and predicting the evolution of agricultural soils, yet their validation still relies on field data that remain scarce and poorly harmonised. This study provides a unique dataset combining 167 treatments from 34 long‑term agronomic experiments in temperate regions, enabling the evaluation of several benchmark SOC models (RothC, Century, AMG, MIMICS, ICBM, Millennial, CTOOL).

The dataset includes climatic information, soil properties, carbon inputs from crops and organic amendments, as well as surface SOC stock measurements. By combining field observations with climate‑database information, it offers a valuable resource for testing and comparing existing models, either individually or as ensembles.

crédits photo : Cindy Roudier-Valaud 

About author : 

Kenji Fujisaki is a research engineer at the INRAE Info&Sols unit in Orléans, recruited as part of the ALAMOD project. He specialises in studying soil‑carbon dynamics under the influence of land‑use change and agricultural practices. His main role within ALAMOD is to ensure the connection between the project’s different activities, particularly the provision and interoperability of observation‑based datasets, and the modelling of the carbon cycle in ecosystems.

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