Abstract. Mulching of agricultural soils has been identified as a viable solution to sequester carbon into the soil, increase soil health and fight desertification; as such, it is an interesting option for carbon farming in Mediterranean areas. Models are used to project the effects of agricultural practices on soil organic carbon in the future for various soil and climatic conditions, and to help policy makers and farmers assess the best way to implement carbon farming strategies. Here, we modify the widely used RothC model to include mulching practices and their direct and indirect effects on soil organic matter input, soil temperature changes, and soil hydraulic balance. We then calibrated and validated our modified RothC (RothC_MM) using the dataset collected in a field mulching experiment described in detail in a companying article, and used the validated RothC_MM to estimate the expected soil carbon sequestration by year 2050 due to mulching for the Valencian community (Spain). Our results show that RothC_MM improved the fit with experimental data with respect to basic RothC, and was able to predict SOC and CO₂ observations taken in the field, and to model the effects of mulch on soil temperature and soil water content.

中文翻译：

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RothC 的修改版本，用于模拟稻草覆盖对土壤碳动态的直接和间接影响，在地中海柑橘园中校准

摘要。农业土壤覆盖已被确定为将碳固存到土壤中、增加土壤健康和防治荒漠化的可行解决方案；因此，它是地中海地区碳农业的一个有趣选择。模型用于预测未来各种土壤和气候条件下农业实践对土壤有机碳的影响，并帮助决策者和农民评估实施碳农业战略的最佳方式。在这里，我们修改了广泛使用的 RothC 模型，以包括覆盖做法及其对土壤有机质输入、土壤温度变化和土壤水力平衡的直接和间接影响。然后，我们使用在公司文章中详细描述的田间覆盖实验中收集的数据集校准和验证了我们修改后的 RothC (RothC_MM)，并使用经过验证的 RothC_MM 来估计到 2050 年由于瓦伦西亚社区（西班牙）的覆盖而导致的预期土壤固碳。我们的结果表明，RothC_MM 改进了与基本 RothC 相关的实验数据的拟合，并且能够预测 SOC 和 CO₂实地观察，并模拟覆盖物对土壤温度和土壤含水量的影响。