Filling the Gap: Adding Soil Inorganic Carbon into Ecosystem Services Framework for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Soil inorganic carbon (SIC) is a part of total carbon (TC), but it is currently not included in the list of key soil properties related to ecosystem services (e.g. provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services). Soil inorganic carbon is a dynamic key soil property in soil classification, taxonomy, fertility making its inclusion in the framework of ecosystem important. With soils rapidly changing due to human use and climate change, the soil ecosystem services framework should include not only SOC but SIC as well since it is of global importance to soil fertility, the long-term C cycle, especially in semiarid and arid climates, where SIC comprises the largest C pool. The objective of this study is to assess the importance of SIC in 12 soil orders of Soil Taxonomy within the context of ecosystem services. The potential impacts on society include adding SIC into ecosystem services framework for the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals.