Some Approaches to Measuring Soil’s Carbon Sequestration Potential in Ukraine

The Strategy on reducing greenhouse gas emissions for the period up to 2030 was adopted in October 2021 at COP26. However, it does not take into account the potential of arable soils for carbon sequestration. Meanwhile, on a global scale, carbon sequestration by soils is regarded as one of the most important tools to combat further increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. According to preliminary estimates, the amount of carbon that can potentially accumulate in the soils of Ukraine is 757,7 million tons, of which 23,3 million tons in the arable soils of Polisia, 350,3 million tons in the soils of the Forest-steppe and 384,2 million tons soils of the Steppe of Ukraine. At the same time, modern assessments of the sequestration potential, do not usually involve assessment of erosion processes and the spatial heterogeneity of humus accumulation conditions, which significantly change the carbon cycle in slope soils. This article discusses four possible approaches to assessing the potential of soil sequestration as well as the popular, but difficult to implement, method of carbon accumulation modeling. The authors consider three variants of the balance method for assessing the potential capacity of soil sequestration based on the difference between potential and real content of organic carbon. All three approaches give similar results for assessing the sequestration potential of