Soil Organic Carbon (SOC)

AUS-AKW-CON-SOC General Moderate confidence

Benchmark Value

No specific value — see range
Range: 0.5 to 0.8 %
Thresholds: Lower: 0.5, Upper: —
Optimal Range: 0.5 to 0.8
Direction: Higher is desirable ↑
Form: OptimalRange

Scoring Curve

This curve shows how a field measurement for this indicator would score across all available benchmark forms in this context.

Evidence & Context

Benchmark for Sandy Calcareous Soils: A range of 0.5 – 0.8% is proposed.

Metric Definition:

Soil Organic Carbon concentration in the 0-10 cm soil layer

Benchmark Definition:

This benchmark represents the optimal Soil Organic Carbon concentration in the 0-10 cm soil layer for Sandy Calcareous Soils in protected natural areas of the Arid Karstic Woodlands & Shrublands biome in Australia.

Justification:

Derived by synthesizing quantitative data from semi-arid calcareous agricultural soils and calibrating with qualitative descriptions of 'low' SOC from arid calcareous rangelands.

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Context

  • Region Australia
  • Biome Arid Karstic Woodlands & Shrublands
  • Land Use Conservation / Protected Natural Areas
  • Assessment Conservation Target
  • Evidence Type ReferenceCondition

Lifecycle

  • Status Active
  • Version 1
  • Effective From 19 Mar 2026

Notes

Lower Critical Threshold: 0.5% SOC is considered critically low, risking degradation. No upper detrimental threshold — higher values are always better up to natural saturation. This benchmark is stratified by soil texture due to the strong control of clay content on SOC storage potential.

Related Benchmarks

Other benchmarks in the AUS-AKW-CON-SOC family.

— % Moderate
Conservation / Protected Natural Areas · Conservation Target
OptimalRange Active v1