The CENTURY model, capturing both plant production and environmental
concerns related to nutrient budgeting (Parton et al., 1994; Parton & Rassmussen
1994), was developed to model the movement of soil organic matter and nutrient
dynamics in the environment using plant-soil relationships for different types of
ecosystems including grasslands, agricultural lands, forests and savanna. CENTURY
simulates the growth of various crops, grasses and trees. Different crop, grass and forest
systems are distinguished by varying the parameters that control maximum growth
rate, C allocation among plant parts and the C/N ratios of plant parts. Parameters in
the equations that account for shading, water and temperature limitations, maximum
plant growth rate, ranges of C/N ratios for plant compartments, etc. can be adjusted to
reflect the physiological properties of various vegetation types and particular species of
grasses, crops or trees. Biomass can be removed or transferred to other organic matter
pools such as litter by disturbance events such as harvesting, grazing, plowing, burning,
clear cutting. Disturbance events affect both the quantity and nutrient concentration of
litter that supplies the soil organic matter pool.
The CENTURY model uses inputs of precipitation, maximum and minimum
temperature, soil type, and current as well as historical land use information to simulate
changes in C, N, P, S and biomass production on a monthly time step. CENTURY
includes submodels for plant growth, decomposition of dead plant material and SOM,
and soil water and temperature dynamics. Plant growth is limited by soil water content,
temperature, and nutrient availability. Carbon and nutrients are allocated among leaf,
woody, and root biomass based on vegetation type and nutrient availability. Transfer
rates of C and nutrients from dead plant material to the soil organic matter and
available nutrient pools are controlled by the lignin concentration and C/N ratio of the
material, decomposition factors based on temperature and soil water, and soil physical
properties related to texture.
Three soil organic matter (SOM) pools are considered in the SOM submodel:
active SOM, slow SOM and passive SOM. The active SOM pool has a rapid turnover
time (0.5–1year), and includes dead plant material with low C/N ratios and low
proportions of lignin, microbial biomass and the highly labile by-products of microbial
metabolism. Active SOM is converted into CO
2
, inorganic forms of nutrients and
slow SOM. The slow SOM pool has intermediate turnover rates (10–50 years), and
includes material with high C/N ratios and high lignin contents and the microbial
by-products that are moderately resistant to further decomposition. The passive SOM
pool has a very slow turnover rate (1000–5000 years), and consists of material that is
extremely resistant to further breakdown. An important product of decomposition is
CO
2
. Finer textured soils retain more organic matter in stable forms due to chemical
and physical protection. The available nutrient pool (NO
3
, NH
4
, P, S) is supplied by
decomposition of SOM, biological N fixation, and external nutrient additions such as
fertilization and atmospheric N deposition. The proportions of SOM in the respective
pools, and soil water, temperature, and texture determine the rate of nutrient supply
from decomposition. Available nutrients are distributed among soil layers under the
Annex 3 – Tools for land evaluation
97
assumption that the concentrations of mineral N and SOM are highest near the soil
surface and decline exponentially with depth.
The CENTURY model is an integrated model that captures. Other models that deal
with carbon sequestration on agricultural land are CQESTR (Rickman et al., 2001) and
the Roth-C model (Coleman and Jenkinson 1999).
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