Conservation of soil organic carbon, biodiversity and the provision of other ecosystem services along climatic gradients in West Africa

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2009Author
Marks, E.
Aflakpui, G. K. S.
Nkem, N.
Khouma, M.
Kokou, K.
Sagoe, R.
Suggested citation
Marks, E.;
Aflakpui, G. K. S.;
Nkem, N.;
Poch, Rosa M.;
Khouma, M.;
Kokou, K.;
...
Sebastià, Ma. T..
(2009)
.
Conservation of soil organic carbon, biodiversity and the provision of other ecosystem services along climatic gradients in West Africa.
Biogesciencies, 2009, vol. 6, núm. 8, p. 1825-1838.
https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-6-1825-2009.
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Show full item recordAbstract
Terrestrial carbon resources are major drivers of
development in West Africa. The distribution of these resources
co-varies with ecosystem type and rainfall along a
strong Northeast-Southwest climatic gradient. Soil organic
carbon, a strong indicator of soil quality, has been severely
depleted in some areas by human activities, which leads to
issues of soil erosion and desertification, but this trend can
be altered with appropriate management. There is significant
potential to enhance existing soil carbon stores in West
Africa, with benefits at the global and local scale, for atmospheric
CO2 mitigation as well as supporting and provisioning
ecosystem services. Three key factors impacting
carbon stocks are addressed in this review: climate, biotic
factors, and human activities. Climate risks must be considered
in a framework of global change, especially in West
Africa, where landscape managers have few resources available
to adapt to climatic perturbations. Among biotic factors,
biodiversity conservation paired with carbon conservation
may provide a pathway to sustainable development, and
biodiversity conservation is also a global priority with local
benefits for ecosystem resilience, biomass productivity,
and provisioning services such as foodstuffs. Finally, human
management has largely been responsible for reduced
carbon stocks, but this trend can be reversed through the implementation
of appropriate carbon conservation strategies in
the agricultural sector, as shown by multiple studies. Owing
to the strong regional climatic gradient, country-level initiatives will need to consider carbon sequestration approaches
for multiple ecosystem types. Given the diversity of environments,
global policies must be adapted and strategies developed
at the national or sub-national levels to improve carbon
storage above and belowground. Initiatives of this sort must
act locally at farmer scale, and focus on ecosystem services
rather than on carbon sequestration solely.
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Biogesciencies, 2009, vol. 6, núm. 8, p. 1825-1838European research projects
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