A digital soil mapping approach to soil carbon monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV)
Wadoux, Alexandre M.J.C., Donovan, Mitchell, Fu, Peng, Leach, Nicholas R., Maddalena, Julia, Rustowicz, Rose, Schurman, David, and Kellner, James R. (2026) A digital soil mapping approach to soil carbon monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV). npj Sustainable Agriculture, 4. 58.
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Abstract
Soils can sequester carbon and contribute to climate change mitigation, but credible soil carbon offset markets require robust Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) programs. Current approaches rely on models with soil sampling or on repeated probability sampling. We propose a digital soil mapping (DSM) framework to estimate soil organic carbon (SOC) stock change and uncertainty. Using physical samples from a hypothetical project across seven fields in two U.S. states, we calibrate, predict, validate, and spatially aggregate SOC estimates. We assess the effect of calibration sample size on field- and project-level means and variances and extend the framework to quantify change. Estimated uncertainty of averaged SOC stocks was <1 Mg ha<sup>−1</sup>, yielding a 12% uncertainty deduction for a 5-year, 430-acre project when using a probability of exceedance method. Assuming the sequestration rate is 0.6% of the stock size, simulations suggest deductions <10% for most projects >5 years and <5% for large (>50,000 acres), long-term projects. This DSM approach offers a cost-effective and scalable alternative to other existing methods.
| Item ID: | 92711 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 2731-9202 |
| Copyright Information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. |
| Date Deposited: | 07 Oct 2026 02:47 |
| FoR Codes: | 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4106 Soil sciences > 410602 Pedology and pedometrics @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1806 Terrestrial systems and management > 180601 Assessment and management of terrestrial ecosystems @ 100% |
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