Abstract:Afforestation in degraded area is thought to be an efficient way commonly adopted all over the word to prevent soil degradation, and plays an important role in alleviating the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, which is of great significance to mitigate global climate change. Many studies about the effects of land use change on soil organic carbon have been widely carried out in China, including many aspects such asdynamics of soil organic carbon pool induced by the conversions among natural forests, grassland, plantations and cropland, while the study of dynamics of soil organic carbon pool in the eroded land after vegetation restoration, is still scarce. In this study, we chose several Pinus massoniana plantation plots at different stand ages located in Hetian, Changting, as research objects. Combining with space-time replacement method, RothC(version 26.3)model was used to retrieve and predict the dynamics of soil organic carbon in topsoil(0-20cm)after the restoration of Pinus massoniana in eroded red soil. The result showed that RothC(version 26.3)model played well in inversion and prediction of soil organic carbon in topsoil during the restoration of Pinus massoniana, and the simulations of soil carbon changes given by RothC model could perfectly reflect the change trend of soil organic carbon in the process of vegetation recovery in southern eroded red soil region. Analysis revealed strong correlations between the simulated and measured values (r>0.9, P<0.01), which suggests that RothC 26.3 model is a feasible tool to assess the dynamic of soil organic carbon pool of Pinus massoniana woodland in southern eroded red soil region, under the condition of mid-subtropical monsoon climate. After the plantation of Pinus massoniana, the carbon sequestration rate of topsoil(0-20cm)in eroded land increases gradually in a nonlinear way, which will reach the utmost in 15 to 25 years, and the average rate of soil carbon sequestration in the first 30 years (after masson pine recovery) is about 0.385 tC·hm-2·a-1, and the average rate of carbon sequestration during the succession to the local climax community is about 0.156 tC·hm-2·a-1. Calculated by stimulation fitting equation,the saturated carbon capacity of eroded red soil land is about 36.85 tC/hm2 and carbon sequestration potential is 33.26 tC/hm2 in study area.