Soil Structure and Organic Carbon: A Review

This chapter explores the relations between soil structure, organic carbon, and land use practices. The structure of soils can be considered from four different and fundamental aspects: form, stability, resiliency, and vulnerability. Each aspect of soil structure can be considered across a range of scales. Soil texture has a major influence on the form, stability, and resiliency of soil structure as well as the response of soil structure to weather, biological factors, and management. Organic carbon in soil represents materials of plant, animal, and microbial origin that are in various stages of decomposition and are associated with the mineral fraction with different degrees of intimacy. Pores may be created and stabilized by soil fauna. The total porosity that is measured at any given time in nonswelling soils is strongly influenced by soil characteristics such as texture and organic carbon content and by management. Macropores can represent as much as a third of the total porosity of soils.