About

The CFAES Rattan Lal Center for Carbon Management and Sequestration (Lal Carbon Center) is located on The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. The mission of the Lal Carbon Center is to provide comprehensive, interdisciplinary research on terrestrial carbon management and sequestration techniques and technologies in the fields of agriculture, agroecology, bioenergy crops, nutrient cycling and waste management.

The goal of the Lal Carbon Center is to provide accurate assessments of soil and biological carbon sequestration for climate change mitigation in order to improve basic scientific understanding on carbon cycling in terrestrial systems as well as to provide policy makers with relevant information on carbon cycling. A full list of peer-reviewed publications, chapters, books, and oral and poster presentations by Lal Carbon Center researchers can be found here.

Research techniques include soil physical, chemical, and biological assessment; GIS mapping and prediction; soil quality indexing; lifecycle assessment; X-ray and mass spectroscopy methods; regional and global carbon assessments; etc. 

Update: The State-of-Science of Soil Carbon Sequestration

RationalE

Improve and sustain soil quality and its functions through increasing the soil C pool to meet the demands of growing and progressively affluent world population through climate resilient agriculture.

Scope

• Science of C cycling in soils, vegetation, wetlands and biofuel plantations,
• Effects of C sequestration, acceptability of different options, and the human dimensions including education, communication and  policy issues.
• Ecosystem services affected by C in soils and biomass

Multi-disciplinary Components 

Soil science, climatology, environmental sciences, crop sciences, engineering, geology, economics, geography, social sciences, public policy, and communication.

Historic Evolution of the CFAES RAttan LAl Center for Carbon management and Sequestration