Enhanced silicate weathering accelerates forest carbon sequestration by stimulating the soil mineral carbon pump

Abstract

AbstractEnhanced silicate rock weathering (ERW) is an emerging strategy for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from the atmosphere to mitigate anthropogenic climate change. ERW aims at promoting soil inorganic carbon sequestration by accelerating geochemical weathering processes. Theoretically, ERW may also impact soil organic carbon (SOC), the largest carbon pool in terrestrial ecosystems, but experimental evidence for this is largely lacking. Here, we conducted a 2‐year field experiment in tropical rubber plantations in the southeast of China to evaluate the effects of wollastonite powder additions (0, 0.25, and 0.5 kg m−2) on both soil organic and inorganic carbon at 0–10 cm depth. We found that ERW significantly increased the concentration of SOC and HCO3−, but the increases in SOC were four and eight times higher than that of HCO3− with low‐ and high‐level wollastonite applications. ERW had positive effects on the accrual of organic carbon in mineral‐associated organic matter (MAOM) and macroaggregate fractions, but not on particulate organic matter. Path analysis suggested that ERW increased MAOM mainly by increasing the release of Ca, Si, and Fe, and to a lesser extent by stimulating root growth and microbial‐derived carbon inputs. Our study indicates that ERW with wollastonite can promote SOC sequestration in stable MOAM in surface soils through both the soil mineral carbon pump and microbial carbon pump. These effects may have been larger than the inorganic CDR during our experiment. We argue it is essential to account for the responses of SOC in the assessments of CDR by ERW.