Change in soil carbon stocks and calculation of total nitrogen and soil organic carbon trends and C:N — WFS

The project is financed by the Environmental Protection and Energy Efficiency Fund within the Programme “Upgrade and Development of the Environmental Protection Information System and Improvement of the Monitoring and Reporting System on the State of the Environment in the Republic of Croatia”, Component 2: Improving the monitoring and reporting system on the state of the environment in the Republic of Croatia; improving data collection and exchange systems and developing methodologies for their processing in accordance with the guidelines of the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol defined by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). The project leader is the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Energy, and the executors are the Croatian Geological Institute, the Croatian Forest Research Institute and the Agricultural Land Agency. In the period 2014-2014 In 2017, a field and laboratory survey of the soil condition was carried out at 725 representative sites. General sampling location data containing administrative, location, geographical and other data (relief, climate and meteorological data, detailed land use and plant cover data, description of surface properties of the soil) were collected. The field sampling of soils for each LULUCF land use category was carried out according to the modified methodology described in the EU DG JRC (Joint research centre) “Soil sampling protocol to certify the changes of organic carbon stock in mineral soil of the European Union — EU JRC”. The protocol modifications aimed at ensuring reporting under the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocols, i.e. ensuring compliance with the IPCC methodology. Sampling of soils on forest land (FL) under the JRC protocol is foreseen at two depths of 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm and an organic layer (listine), but sampling was also carried out at 20-30 cm depth for UNFCCC and Kyoto reporting requirements. Land under crops (CL) was sampled to two depths (0-20 cm and 20-30 cm) and grasslands (GL), wetlands (WL), settlements (SL) and other land (OL) were sampled to three depths 0-10, 10-20 and 20-30 cm. Geochemical analyses were carried out at depths 0-10 and 20-30 cm for forest land (FL) and meadows and pastures (GL) while composite samples of 0-30 cm and 0-20 cm were analysed for cropland (CL).