Organic carbon loss from the black soil region threatens food security in China

Jian Chen; Wenyou Hu; Xianghua Xu; Yuxin Tong; Guojing Yan; Dongsheng Yu; Yuguo Zhao; Lixia Ma; Enze Xie; Yu Zhang; Tingrun Zou; Zhongjun Jia; Michael L. Thompson; Miguel Angel Taboada; Yongcun Zhao

doi:10.59717/j.xinn-geo.2026.100213

The Innovation Geoscience > 2026 Vol. 4 > No. 2 > 100213

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Organic carbon loss from the black soil region threatens food security in China

1.
State Key Laboratory of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Institute of Soil Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 211135, China
2.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 101408, China
3.
School of Ecology and Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
4.
Global Soil Partnership, Land and Water Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rome 00100, Italy
5.
Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130102, China
6.
Agronomy Department, Iowa State University, Ames 50011, USA
7.
College of Agriculture, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires C1417DSE, Argentina
8.
These authors contributed equally

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Corresponding authors: yczhao@issas.ac.cn (Y.C.); wyhu@issas.ac.cn (W.H.)
Received Date: September 15, 2025

Accepted Date: March 10, 2026

Published Online: March 16, 2026

The Innovation Geoscience 4(2), https://doi.org/10.59717/j.xinn-geo.2026.100213 | Cite this article

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PUBLIC SUMMARY
1. Mean soil organic carbon (SOC) in China's black soil region declined by 16.53% over the past four decades.
  
  Historically, the loss of SOC did not directly exert a strong negative impact on crop yields.
  
  Under future climate scenarios, topsoil SOC may decline 22%–29% by 2100, threatening long-term food security.
  
  Digital agriculture is a potential pathway to support the sustainable use of black soils in the future.

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT

Changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) within the world's most fertile black soils pose a major challenge to soil carbon-based climate change mitigation and food security. Yet limited understanding of the spatiotemporal dynamics of SOC across different depths in black soils and their effects on crop yields has constrained sustainable soil management (SSM). Using 18,314 field observations from China's black soil region, we integrated process-based and machine learning approaches to reconstruct and project spatiotemporally consistent SOC time series at the centennial scale. Results show that cropland topsoil (0–30 cm) SOC concentrations decreased from 24.2 to 20.2 g kg⁻¹ between 1980 and 2023, with minimal changes in deeper soils. Under future climate scenarios, topsoil SOC may decline by 22%–29% by 2100, potentially reducing crop yields by 263–412 kg ha⁻¹, which corresponds to 5.7%–8.9% of total crop production in Northeast China in 2023. Promoting SSM through digital agriculture could help mitigate declines in SOC and crop yields in China, while global coordination is urgently needed to establish standardized SOC monitoring systems and safeguard the sustainable productivity of black soils worldwide.
- Black /
- Soil /
- / /
- Soil /
- Organic /
- Carbon /
- / /
- Soil-Landscape /
- Modeling /
- / /
- Sustainable /
- Soil /
- Management /
- / /
- Food /
- Security

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Chen J., Hu W., Xu X., et al. (2026). Organic carbon loss from the black soil region threatens food security in China. The Innovation Geoscience 4:100213. https://doi.org/10.59717/j.xinn-geo.2026.100213

Chen J., Hu W., Xu X., et al. (2026). Organic carbon loss from the black soil region threatens food security in China. The Innovation Geoscience 4:100213. https://doi.org/10.59717/j.xinn-geo.2026.100213

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Organic carbon loss from the black soil region threatens food security in China

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