Contribution of atmospheric deposition to soil provisioning ecosystem services in the contiguous United States: Part 1. Calcium

Elena Mikhailova, Michael Cope, Garth Groshans, Christopher Post, Mark Schlautman, Lisha Zhang

Soil provisioning ecosystem services may be impacted by the atmospheric deposition of calcium ions (Ca2+). Atmospheric deposition can serve as an input of Ca2+ to soils; however, deposition varies spatially across the United States (U.S.). This study ranked an estimated provisioning value of soil ecosystem services due to atmospheric Ca2+ deposition within the contiguous U.S. by state and region. The total provisioning ecosystem value of atmospheric calcium deposition was $65M (i.e., 65 million U.S. dollars) based on an average 2014 price of $10.42 per U.S. ton of agricultural limestone (CaCO3) or nearly $355M based on an average 2014 price of $33.00 per U.S. ton gypsum (CaSO4•2H2O). The highest ranked regions for total value of Ca2+ deposition were: 1) Northern Plains, 2) Midwest and 3) South Central while the highest ranked regions based on area-normalized values were: 1) South Central, 2) Midwest and 3) Northern Plains. The highest ranked states for total value of Ca2+ deposition were: 1) Texas, 2) Kansas and 3) New Mexico while the highest ranked states based on area-normalized values were: 1) Kansas, 2) Iowa and 3) Illinois. The results of this study begin to provide an estimated value of the importance of atmospheric calcium deposition when assessing ecosystem services. The potential impacts on society from this research include adding calcium deposition into the ecosystem services framework for the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals.

Keywords: Agriculture, Calcium, Fertility, Fertilization, Food security, Gypsum, Land use, Market failure, Soil inorganic carbon (SIC), STATSGO

Proscience vol. 5

Pp 58-68

DOI:10.14644/dust.2018.010