Carbon Storage by Urban Soils in the United States
We used data available from the literature and measurements from Baltimore, Maryland, to (i) assess inter-city variability of soil organic carbon (SOC) pools (1-m depth) of six cities (Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Oakland, and Syracuse); (ii) calculate the net effect of urban land-use conversion on SOC pools for the same cities; (iii) use the National Land Cover Database to extrapolate total SOC pools for each of the lower 48 U.S. states; and (iv) compare these totals with aboveground totals of carbon storage by trees.