Soil organic carbon (SOC) can significantly influence key soil functional properties and improve soil quality by increasing water holding capacity, reducing erosion, and enhancing crop productivity. However, accurate assessments of SOC stocks at landscape levels remain very challenging, particularly in mosaic tropical areas, due to the influence of anthropogenic and environmental factors.

In this study, we quantitatively assessed the effects of landscape attributes (soil depth, land use type, slope gradient, topographic position) on spatial variability of soil parameters (SOC, bulk density, coarse fraction), and estimated SOC stocks in a site of 100 km 2 in the highlands of Cameroon, using 320 soil samples collected from 160 sampling plots at various landscape positions.

The soil parameters exhibited moderate variation according to the coefficient of variations (33 – 73%) and their experimental semivariograms were best fitted by spherical models. The estimated total SOC stocks stored for the entire site were 37,571 tons and 57,341 tons for topsoil and subsoil, respectively, with a total of 94,912 tons of carbon to a depth of 50 cm.

The kriging maps revealed a decreasing trend of SOC stocks from west to east across the study site, with higher values observed in lowlands characterized by low bulk density and low coarse fraction while lower values were found in mountainous areas. These results are particularly useful for the assessment of the roles of landscape attributes in rehabilitating landscapes, offering a baseline reference for future estimates of SOC stock and policies to guide landscape restoration initiatives in fragile ecosystems such as the highlands of Cameroon and similar regions elsewhere.