One answer for cleaner air, water: better agricultural...( Better ...)

Better management of agricultural lands in the United States could help reclaim the 100 to 300 million tons of carbon that escapes into the atmosphere each year, according to a researcher at Ohio State University.

Carbon is considered one of the key pollutants contributing to global warming.

Agricultural lands, which include crop, pasture and grazing lands, comprise about 42 percent of the total landmass of the United States. In the last 200 years, nearly 5 billion metric tons of carbon has been released into the atmosphere because of land use change, such as plowing, drainage and residue removal in the U.S., said Rattan Lal, a professor of natural resources at Ohio State. Each year, accelerated soil erosion releases about 15 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere in the United States alone.

"Soil can either be a source of, or a sink for carbon - it can either emit carbon or take it in," he said. "We need to start practicing ways to take it in. And we can do that by changing how we manage the land."

Lal presented his findings with John Kimble and Ronald Follett, both with the United States Department of Agriculture, on December 18 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

"Agricultural land has the potential to sequester carbon while
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Contact: Rattan Lal
Lal.1@osu.edu
614-292-9069
Ohio State University
17-Dec-2000