Soil is the most important terrestrial carbon (C) reservoir but is greatly impacted by land use change (LUC). Previous analyses of LUC impacts on soil C have focused on biophysical variables, leaving aside the influence of socioeconomics. The aim of our study was to determine global soil organic carbon (SOC) change patterns after LUC and to assess the impacts of both biophysical and socioeconomic factors that influence stocks of SOC after LUC simultaneously. This was done at a global scale using 817 sites from 99 peer-reviewed publications. We performed separate analyses for cases in which there were gains and losses of SOC. The best predictors of SOC stock changes were the type of LUC and predictors related to sampling depth, climate, biome, soil order, relief, geology, years since LUC, and primary productivity. However, also, socioeconomic variables such as indices of poverty, population growth, and levels of corruption were important. They explained 33% of the variability in SOC on their own and helped improve model accuracy from 42 to 53% when considered in combination with biophysical variables. SOC losses were highly correlated to the type of LUC and social variables, while SOC gains correlated most strongly with years since LUC and the biophysical variables. The analyses confirm that one of the biggest drivers of SOC loss is conversion to agroindustrial scale cropping, whereas with regard to the recuperation of SOC after LUC, the factor “time since conversion” emerged as the most important predictive variable, which must be better integrated in respective policy expectations. We conclude that policies should more than ever incentivize holistic approaches that prevent additional loss of native SOC, while at the same time promoting sustainable intensification of existing agricultural regions. Finally future investments on LUC to regain SOC should be aligned with efforts to alleviate poverty and corruption for their potential to achieve mutual gains in soil fertility and socio-economic parameters.

土壤是最重要的陆地碳（C）储集层，但受土地利用变化（LUC）的影响很大。先前对LUC对土壤C的影响的分析集中在生物物理变量上，而没有考虑社会经济学的影响。我们研究的目的是确定LUC后全球土壤有机碳（SOC）的变化模式，并评估同时影响LUC后SOC储量的生物物理和社会经济因素的影响。这是在全球范围内使用来自99个经过同行评审的出版物的817个站点完成的。我们对SOC得失的情况进行了单独的分析。SOC储量变化的最佳预测因子是LUC的类型以及与采样深度，气候，生物群落，土壤秩序，地势，地质，LUC以来的年限和初级生产力相关的预测因子。但是，诸如贫困指数，人口增长和腐败程度等社会经济变量很重要。他们自己解释了SOC的33％变异性，并与生物物理变量一起考虑，有助于将模型的准确性从42％提高到53％。SOC损失与LUC类型和社会变量高度相关，而SOC增益与LUC以来的年份和生物物理变量之间的相关性最大。分析证实，SOC损失的最大驱动力之一是向农用工业规模作物的转化，而对于LUC之后SOC的恢复，“转化后的时间”因素成为最重要的预测变量，必须对其进行更好的整合在各自的政策预期中。我们得出的结论是，政策应比以往更多地鼓励采用整体方法来防止本地SOC的额外损失，同时促进现有农业区域的可持续集约化。最后，未来对土地利用价值的重新获得SOC的投资应与减轻贫困和腐败的努力保持一致，因为它们具有在土壤肥力和社会经济参数上实现共同收益的潜力。