Assessment of Carbon Stock and Carbon Sequestration Potential in three major density-based forest ecosystems of Tripura, North-East India

Abstract

Forest ecosystems are playing major role in regulating the carbon cycle of the earth. We have investigated the vegetation carbon, below ground soil carbon, soil nutrient properties and carbon sequestration potential of three different density-based forest ecosystems viz ., Open forest (OP), very dense forests (VDF) and moderately dense forests (MDF) of Tripura, Northeast India. The tree biomass was analyzed by the allometric method of Nath et al. (2019) and IPCC (2019) default manual was chosen below-ground measurement. While the total biomass carbon was estimated with the manual of Brown et al. (1989) method. The SOC stock was analyzed by the formula of the Blanco-Canqui and Lal. (2008). It was observed that the three categories of forests have variation in carbon stock and carbon sequestration potential. The stand density recorded higher in OF , while the VDF recorded maximum basal area. The biomass-C and Sequestration potential were recorded higher in VDF and MDF respectively. The rate of the sequestration percentage was recorded highest in VDF and lowest in MDF. The SOC stock was observed maximum in MDF followed by OF and VDF. The Soil Physico-chemical properties have been showing variations along with the forest categories. However, these forests have been facing a greater number of anthropogenic disturbances, which decreases the species number and its richness to the wild day-by-day. We suggest more future studies on these forest types to explore ecosystem level carbon stock, and restored such systems for better understanding their role in carbon management.