The total value of ecosystem services provided by soil carbon sequestration in England and Wales is £59.7 billion, according to the first study of its kind.
The benefits of locking carbon in soils go well beyond climate regulation, including food production, pest control, water management and more.
Building a national valuation
But with no previous attempt to calculate a financial figure derived from this range of services, researchers from the Universities of Reading and Greenwich took on the task using data on the UK’s existing carbon stocks and from 16 previous studies on croplands, grasslands, and woodlands. They selected the studies for further analysis based on criteria including being published post-1980, generating new data and being from the temperate climatic region – the same as the UK.
They applied the UN System of Environmental Economic Accounting in their work, and where there were no data specifically from the UK, they used an approach called Benefits Transfer, where existing valuations, in this case from agricultural ecosystems in the temperate zone, were transferred to a UK context.
The value hidden beneath our feet
Their calculations suggested that the carbon stored in first 0-30cm of soils in England and Wales brings £50.8 billion through the services it provides, while 0-100cm brings the total up to £59.7 billion.
“These valuations may be taken to represent, in money terms, what society would be willing to pay to secure the services they are already receiving and are potentially representative of what they would be willing to pay, per unit of carbon, for additional flows of these services,” they wrote in the journal Land Use Policy.
Limitations and gaps in ecosystem service research
The team acknowledged several limitations to their novel approach. In particular, the differences in study sites and valuation approaches used in the research they extracted data from could limit the usefulness of the data transfers they applied, despite the scientists’ best efforts to validate it with UK sources.
There is also a more fundamental issue: some ecosystem services from soil carbon sequestration are very underrepresented in research to date. As such, they called for more valuation studies to fully account for the biological control, waste recycling, raw material production, and cultural values of carbon in UK soils.
Making the case for carbon farming
While they acknowledged the limitations, the team argued that the findings are robust enough to suggest the methodology could be useful to others wishing to calculate the national value of carbon sequestration. They also suggested that the figures could increase the popularity of schemes to encourage soil carbon sequestration with farmers, while also make increased levels of subsidy to support carbon farming practices more acceptable to the public.
“The results generated by this study have shown that there are significant ecosystem service benefits from soil carbon sequestration beyond climate regulation. This evidence is something that can support agricultural policy design,” the scientists said.
“It is also worth noting that these co-benefits of soil carbon sequestration benefit both the land manager and wider society.”
Key takeaways
- Soil carbon sequestration delivers an estimated £59.7 billion in ecosystem services.
- Benefits include food production, water management, pest control and climate regulation.
- Researchers combined UK soil data with evidence from 16 temperate-region studies.
- Some ecosystem services remain poorly valued and underrepresented in research.
- Findings could support carbon farming incentives and future agricultural policy.
If you’re interested in how carbon farming will change the sector, you might also like our stories on new methods of measuring soil carbon in fields and breeding crops for increased carbon storage..
Want to read more stories like this? Sign up to our newsletter for bi-weekly updates on sustainable farming and agtech innovation.
