Analysis of enhanced weathering potential on European agricultural land

Enhanced weathering (EW), the application of fine silicate rock powder in croplands, has emerged as a promising nature-based strategy to remove atmospheric CO2. Nonetheless, further efforts are needed to provide reliable estimates of carbon removal and to identify key locations, while accounting for the diverse factors that influence the efficiency of enhanced weathering.

In this work, we assess which European farmlands are most suitable for carbon removal via EW by combining model simulations with spatially and temporally explicit geospatial datasets. The underlying EW model is the Soil Model for Enhanced Weathering (SMEW), a biogeochemical and ecohydrological model that simulates physicochemical processes in the upper soil layers. SMEW is combined with hydroclimatic and environmental parameters from ERA5, soil characteristics from the Harmonized World Soil Database v2.0 (HWSD v2.0), and an agro-hydrological model (WaterCROP) to account for specific crop characteristics and irrigation regimes. Simulations are then run at high time resolution over decades. The results reveal which European regions may serve as hotspots for carbon removal via EW, potentially guiding future mitigation efforts across Europe.