Assessment of existing soil organic carbon stocks and changes at a national and regional level in Poland

The paper presents the usefulness of IPCC Tier 1 methodology for the calculation of annual carbon stock changes for Annex V of the Directive: The promotion of the use energy from renewable sources (RED, 2009/28/EC). The presented results showed that carbon stocks should be calculated for a cold temperate dry climate, which is typical for Poland. In the research we did not find sufficient reasons to perform such calculations for a cold moist temperate climate region, which is also distinguished by the IPCC in Poland. The existing carbon stocks in cultivated high clay activity mineral, sandy and spodic soils were not statistically significantly different, but were more than often lower regarding the IPCC standards for carbon stock values. Spatial differentiations of annual carbon stock changes were low for three of the long-term studied cultivated soils under reduced tillage and no tillage systems with medium, high, or no manure input. Subsequently, the average values of annual carbon stock changes for all of Poland could be accepted and taken into account as binding magnitudes of organic carbon sequestrations for the estimation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the life cycle of liquid biofuels. However, calculations should be done for the NUTS-2 regions, if farms apply these systems of cultivation with a high OM input of manure.