5. Discussion
The sites selected for soil sampling represent a geographic range of
elevation, climate, and lithology for the western United States. The
values of floodplain SOC at these degraded, treatment, and reference
sites fall within the most common range (100-1000 Mg C/ha; Sutfin et
al., 2016) of published values for floodplain SOC in temperate-latitude
rivers. Our primary objective was to determine whether there are
detectable differences in floodplain carbon stock between the
categorized floodplain states of degraded, treatment, and reference, and
to assess the carbon sequestration potential of stream restoration
within the context of these simple categories. A secondary objective was
to examine factors that influence floodplain SOC stock at a larger,
regional scale across the western United States.