Soil carbon and its associate resilience using big data analytics: for food security and environmental management

Soils are a binding site for carbon storage. Climatic variables, namely precipitation, and temperature are regarded as the primary factors controlling soil organic carbon (SOC) storage; however, no consensus has been made about the magnitude and direction that changes in climatic variables may have on SOC. Based on copula theory, the present study investigates the soil carbon dynamics and the likelihood of SOC occurrence under varying climatic conditions across India's 14 agro-climatic zones. Results demonstrate the possibility of occurrence of SOC under both low and high temperature/precipitation conditions. It was found that the SOC of agro-climatic zones situated in semi-arid and arid regions are more sensitive to changes in climatic variables compared to that of the others. We then quantify the soil resilience of the agro-climatic zones based on the amount of SOC content. Results showed that only 1/3 of India's agro-climatic zones were resilient during the study period (1985–2005). Thus, the study's findings facilitate the identification of India's most sensitive agro-climatic zone for soil carbon management and climate-related policy. It stresses the need for big data assimilation to identify site-specific management practices that can facilitate soil health and improve the country's soil resilient capacity for food security and environmental management.