Dear Colleagues,

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays a critical role in the global carbon cycle and has a profound effect on climate change. Soil has great potential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions with appropriate mitigation practices. Determining how to explore soil carbon sink functions with appropriate management practices is important for global change mitigation. A large body of research has focused on SOC, including its variants, impact factors, change mechanisms, and management. However, soil is a very complex system, and SOC pools are affected by multiple factors, including climate change, soil management, land use changes, etc. There are still some areas that lack adequate research. We still lack a comprehensive understanding of SOC at the macroscopic level under various influences, as well as an in-depth understanding of the underlying mechanisms of SOC turnover at the microscopic level. Recently, with technological advances including model simulations, automatic monitoring, molecular techniques, etc., we can further explore how SOC changes under human activity. The present issue aims to bring together relevant high-quality articles focusing on the latest developments related to many different aspects of SOC under the influence of human activity. Topics will include but are not limited to the following: SOC of different ecosystems such as cultivated soil, grassland, forest, wetland, etc.; effects of different land use changes such as ecosystem degradation, ecosystem restoration, deforestation, forestation, agricultural cultivation, agricultural abandonment, etc.; effects of different management practices such as fertilization, litter input, tillage, soil amendment, grazing, forest harvesting, etc.

Dr. Shangqi Xu
Guest Editor

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• land use change
• soil management
• cultivated land
• carbon sequestration
• carbon emission