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We did not state that soil erosion generates an unintentional benefit for climate. Instead, we suggested that erosion-induced changes in the carbon cycle need to be taken into account when developing management schemes to maximize carbon storage in soils. However, we agree that eroded nitrogen needs to be replaced if agricultural production is to be sustained, and that this will come at a cost both to atmospheric greenhouse gas levels and the economy. We concur that determining the impact of farming and land use on greenhouse gas budgets is an important next step in the development of carbon inventories.
We did, however, consider the coupling between biogeochemical cycles, albeit not for the entire agricultural system. We explicitly considered the impact of soil erosion on the fate of nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon in agricultural landscapes. By doing so we believe that we have contributed towards the development of the more holistic perspective of soil erosion proposed by Kuhn. Such a perspective should not be limited to biogeochemical cycling: we are very aware of the economic and social damage that soil erosion may cause, hence we highlighted in our paper that “erosion threatens the sustainability of food production and human welfare in many parts of the world”.
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Quinton, J., Govers, G., Van Oost, K. et al. Reply to ‘Erosion and climate’. Nature Geosci 3, 738 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo995
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo995
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