Carbon Stock Variations Along Altitudinal and Slope Gradient in the Forest Belt of Simen Mountains National Park, Ethiopia

Abstract

Forests play a significant role in climate change mitigation by sequestering and storing more carbon from the atmosphere which is released by anthropogenic causes. The overall objective of this study was to measure Variations of Carbon Stock along Altitudinal and Slope Gradient in the forest belt of Simen Mountains National Park. And it aimed to add values of the lowland forest belt of the park for climate change mitigation contribution in Ethiopia. The work was accomplished properly using random sampling to estimate the forest carbon in above and below ground biomass by considered each trees and shrubs which had DBH ≥5 cm. Above ground biomass was estimated by using allometric models equation while below ground biomass was determined based on the ratio of below ground biomass to above ground biomass factors. Dead wood, leaf litter, herb and grass (LHG) and soil organic carbon were conducted according to sampling quadrates data and laboratory result. The results shown that, there were twenty species with a density of 2334 trees and shrubs in the study sites which had DBH ≥5 cm. The mean above ground and below ground biomass carbon stock were 270.89±154.50 and 54.18±30.81 t ha-1 respectively. The mean above ground biomass carbon per species was 20.42±17.99 t ha-1. The mean carbon in dead wood, LHG and soil carbon were 0.7258±1.0479, 0.019±0.008 and 242.51±46.42 t ha-1 respectively. The total Carbone stock variation along altitudinal gradient was 542.6, 550.73 and 627.01 t ha-1 for upper, mid and lower altitude respectively by which higher amount of carbon was stored in lower altitude. The total carbon stock variation along slope gradient was 487.3, 557.00 and 625.877 t ha-1 for upper, mid and lower slope respectively by which higher amount of carbon was stored in lower altitude. So that in this study both altitude and slope had the same impact on carbon stock potential of the species in the areas of study.