English

Joshi Rajeev,Singh Hukum

doi:10.5897/ajest2020.2920

Abstract

Climate change is the severest environmental threat of the 21st century. The main factor responsible for the current pace of climate change is attributed to anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs), mainly carbon-dioxide (CO2). So, the aim of reducing carbon sources and increasing the carbon sink can be achieved by protecting the carbon pools. Forests are the largest carbon pool on earth as they hold more than 80% of all terrestrial above ground carbon (AGC) and more than 70% of all soil organic carbon (SOC). Therefore, forests are found to play a key role in the emission mitigation by sequestrating the atmospheric carbon into biomass and soil, and it plays an important role in the global carbon cycle. This article is focused on to understand the carbon sequestration potential of disturbed and undisturbed/managed forest ecosystems due to community interventions which could have a significant contribution against global climate change. It concludes that managed/undisturbed forests are the most effective and consistent sinks of GHGs compared to unmanaged forests. Besides the forest biomass, forests soils also have the potential to slow down the rate of atmospheric CO2 enrichment through the process of carbon sequestration. Therefore, proper and systematic management of forests can store a huge amount of carbon, contribute to mitigate climate change, and help to achieve the required goal of emission reduction as per Kyoto Protocol. Hence, further research is needed to develop a better understanding on the impacts of disturbances on carbon sequestration of the forests ecosystem.   Key words: Biomass, carbon pools, carbon sequestration, climate change, forests, greenhouse gases.

Highlights

Climate change is the most serious threat of the 21st century
Soil plays a vital role in carbon sequestration by increasing soil organic carbon
We report to understand the current status of carbon sequestration potential of disturbed and non-disturbed forest ecosystem along with mechanisms and factors affecting carbon dynamics with a limited focus on climate change mitigation strategies through all literature and secondary information

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Climate change is the most serious threat of the 21st century. It has been considered as one of the debatable burning issues among scientists as well as political communities globally (Ferrarini, 2012). Its strong mitigation potential makes carbon management as a main component of proposed future natural climate solutions (Griscom et al, 2017; Fargione et al, 2018) In one aspect, it plays the role of the sink by sequestering the atmospheric carbon dioxide through the process of photosynthesis, while in others it plays the role of source by releasing carbon through land-use change. Forest functions as emission sources as well as viable sinks of atmospheric carbon, prudent sustainable community forest management will be the milestone steps in tradeoff of the carbon concentration in global mitigation of climate change (Banskota et al, 2007). It is concluded that proper management of natural forests has greater potential to store more amount of carbon which can be a cost-effective tool to mitigate climate change (Figure 3)

Findings

DISCUSSION

CONCLUSION