2017: Size of the Prize: Establishing Soil Carbon Sequestration Potentials (The Nature Conservancy)
The role of soil organic carbon in global carbon cycles is receiving increasing attention both as a potentially large and uncertain source of CO2 emissions in response to rising global temperatures and as a natural sink for carbon that can reduce atmospheric CO2. This project will create decision support tools to help stakeholders–such as Ethiopia, Kenya, and Guinea as well as the African Development Bank and The World Bank–to achieve their goals in optimizing soil carbon sequestration while improving other soil ecosystem services such as food security, energy production, and the availability of clean water. The researchers will initially target select countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, and Guinea as well as the African Development Bank and The World Bank.
Cornell: Johannes Lehmann, David Wolfe, Dominic Woolf (all School of Integrative Plant Science), Jonathon Schuldt (Cornell CALS/Communications)
TNC: Deborah Bossio (Lead Soil Scientist), Stephen Wood (Senior Scientist – Agriculture and Food Systems), Priya Shyamsundar (Lead Economist)