DOI: 10.5061/dryad.h70rxwdsm
title: Data from: Impacts of organic matter amendments on urban soil carbon and soil quality: A meta-analysis

description: Organic matter amendment application is an important avenue of beneficial
 waste diversion and is used to improve soil quality in agricultural and
 urban settings. In urban regions, amendments are used to support local
 food production, maintain vegetation for landscaping and recreational use,
 and reclaim disturbed soils. Urban regions generate large quantities of
 wasted organic resources for potential application aiding in creating a
 circular nutrient economy. There is a growing interest in understanding
 the effects of amendments such as compost, biosolids, and biochar on soil
 properties in agricultural settings. Gaps remain, however, in assessing
 their effects in urban land uses. We conducted a literature review to
 assess the effects of compost, biochar, and biosolids on soil carbon and
 soil quality of urban soils managed for gardening, landscaping,
 recreation, and reclamation. Application of organic matter amendments led
 to an average increase of 3.6 units of soil organic matter% (SOM%).
 Compost and biochar improved SOM% the most, by 3.1 and 6.5 units of SOM%,
 respectively. Biosolids resulted in the smallest increase in SOM% but had
 greater nutrient benefits than other amendments. Parameters related to
 chemical and physical soil quality improved with the application of
 amendments. Gaps in the literature remain, such as assessing urban
 gardens, soil to depths greater than 30 cm, and the persistence of SOM in
 amended soils. This meta-analysis proposes that organic matter amendments
 are a powerful means to improve soil quality in urban regions, provide
 vital cobenefits to surrounding communities, and increase soil carbon
 storage.
description: This data was collected (up unilt July of 2023) primarily by
 gathering data from articles accessible via Google Scholar and Web of
 Science. African Journals Online and Dialnet were also searched. Almost
 all of the data is directly from the papers in the same form, except where
 some unit conersions have been made. Any conversions cells still have
 formulas present to show changes made. Many of these have comments
 attached to at least the first cells when this occurs to explain if
 anything unorthodox occured.
description: # Organic Matter Impacts on Urban Soil Meta-Analysis
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.h70rxwdsm](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.h70rxwdsm) ## Description of the data and file structure This dataset (all the excel files) has information from almost 50 papers that research the use of organic matter amendments (compost, biochar, and biosolids) on urban soils until July of 2023. The focus data collected is soil carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, bulk density, and pH. Other data includes sample size, sampling depth, years of application, application rate, type of urban environment, plant types, and publication information for each included study. The file "Urban Amendments (Y or N) sheet" is the main data file. The has an extra column with a "Yes" or "No" depending on if organic matter amendment application occurred. A "No"' indicates the control samples within studies. This includes data for all the soil properties included in the meta-analysis as well. The main data in included in the first tab titled "General Info (C,N,BD) Sheet". Comments are present to give context if unit conversions were made or data pulled from a paper was unclear. The second tab "Heavy Metals Sheet"  contains information on the impacts of organic matter amendments on heavy metals in soils. Data in this second tab was not used in the associated paper. The file "Application Amount Mg per ha (1 or 0)" has all application rates given as %'s converted to Mg/ha of application (if the information needed for the conversion was available. The 1 indicates organic matter application occurred while a 0 indicates a control (no amending) sample. Data from the first excel file above in included in this data set as well. The file "Spreadsheet Long and Lat for Urban Amendments" has the latitude and longitude values converted for use in GIS software for mapping. Most data from the first two excel files above in included in this data set as well, however, this file contains no comments for context on data. Missing data code: NA I welcome any inquiries at my email [zmalone@ucmerced.edu .](mailto:zmalone@ucmerc.e) ## Sharing/Access information Data was derived from the following sources: * Papers found via searches on Google Scholar and Web of Science. African Journals Online and Dialnet were also used for searching.