Potential of wastelands for carbon sequestration- A review

Abstract

One of the most important issues of the 21st century in India is carbon (C) management through carbon sequestration and its long term storage. Enhancing carbon sequestration in degraded agricultural lands has direct environmental, economic, and social benefits for local people. The best practical method for sequestration of excess CO2 from atmosphere is by storing it into a biological system like plant biomass and finally into the soil. According to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2000) one of the best reservoirs of carbon is soil. Soil plays a major role in global carbon cycle as it is an important pool of active carbon. Restoration of depleted soils can lead to a new SOC equilibrium over 25 to 50 years through adoption of Recommended Management Practices (RMP) (Lal et al., 1998) [15]. The average rate of carbon sequestration in uplands is 300-500 kg ha-1 (0.01- 0.02%) and in wet lands, 800-1000 kg ha-1 (0.04- 0.05%) (Lal et al., 2007) [20]. Soils with greatest potential for C accumulation are those that are severely C depleted but still retaining the requisites such as nutrients, structure and microbial population for primary production or can be suitably managed to increase the productivity in short term. Several approaches and tools are required to develop reliable estimates of changes in soil C at scales ranging from the individual experimental plot to whole regional and national inventories. Increasing the soil organic carbon pool is a long term process. Practice of combined land use system will serve the purpose. Knowledge of soils related to SOC pool sequestration and their sustainable management on priority basis is a must to increase the SOC levels for enhancing productivity and sustainability.