Editorial: Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Soil

Rui Yang^1*Wei Lin¹YUANZHI YAO²Yao Zhang³

• ¹Institute of Urban Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Chengdu, China
• ²School of Geographic Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
• ³Colorado State University Natural Resources Ecology Laboratory, Fort Collins, United States

exceed the 1.5°C warming threshold set by the Paris Agreement (Hansen et al., 2025).The primary driver of extreme weather events including heat waves remains climate change induced by the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) particularly as a result of anthropogenic activities. To avoid catastrophic climate consequences, the time for action is now.Soil is one of the most valuable natural resources on this planet and is the ultimate defense of global food security. To meet the rapidly growing global food demand, soil has become a major contributor to GHGs emissions and climate change (Kopittke et al., 2024). On the other hand, soil plays an essential role in the global carbon cycle and also serves as a significant sink of GHGs emissions (Valujeva et al., 2024;Wu et al., 2024).Due to this complexity of terrestrial C cycles, accurate monitoring and estimation of GHGs emissions from the farmland is critical. In this Research Topic, Zeng et al.highlighted the potentiality of using a machine learning model (i.e., extreme gradient boosting, XGBoost) combined with hyperspectral imaging in predicting GHGs emissions from soils, which may help guide future agricultural management.The GHGs emissions from soil are impacted by a diverse range of variables mainly including soil type, moisture, temperature, and management practices such as tillage and soil fertilization (Chataut et al., 2023;Basheer et al., 2024). Opportunities to reduce emissions and promote soil carbon sequestration could be identified following elucidation of the underlying mechanisms controlling soil GHGs emissions. In this Research Topic, Chao et al. estimated farmland carbon emissions from 2011 to 2021 in Guangdong, a province in southern China, using a classic IPCC carbon emission calculation methodology and identified the influencing factors using a decoupling model. Overall, carbon emissions decreased in Guangdong during the evaluated decade primarily as a result of decreased pesticide and fertilizer input in agricultural production.Despite the reduced carbon emissions, agricultural economic development was not significantly affected, indicating a decoupling nature between farmland carbon emissions and economic growth. That study also found spatial disparities in carbon emissions, which highlighted the essentiality of estimating regional farmland carbon emissions.Soil organic matter is probably the most determinant factor influencing the function of natural soil (Weil and Brady, 2017). Therefore, the utilization of organic soil amendments such as compost is a common practice to improve soil health and sustainability. However, a large quantity of CO2 emissions is associated with the is a potent GHG. Jin et al. found that organic fertilizer mixed with N fertilizer can effectively reduce N2O emissions, increase both the grain yields and quality in wheat field compared with N fertilizer alone. Following a combined analysis using laboratory, field, and modeling approaches, Khalifah et al. found that biosolids could mitigate GHGs emissions in agricultural practices over the long term even though an initial surge existed. Silicon is a "quasi-essential" nutrient for higher plant and has been widely reported to mitigate a range of biotic and abiotic stresses (Souri et al., 2021). In this Research Topic, Hoffman et al. found that supplemental silicon could decrease seasonal N2O emissions by ∼30%, but underlying mechanisms are still unknown and need future study.Taken together, this Research Topic provides insight into the latest findings and developments that contribute to our growing understanding of approaches to estimate and reduce soil GHGs emissions. Mitigation of soil GHGs emissions through optimization of nutrient management practices remains a hot topic. Soil is a highly heterogeneous and complex system and soil GHGs emissions are influenced by both natural and anthropogenic factors, leading to varied soil GHGs emissions across regions and agricultural practices. Therefore, development of site-specific and advanced techniques that could mitigate soil GHGs emissions are necessary to achieve the goal of "net zero".