Sequestrated Carbon: Organic Carbon Pool in the Soils under Different Forest Covers and Land Uses in Garhwal Himalayan Region of India

M K Gupta,Satinder Dev Sharma

doi:10.5923/j.ijaf.20110101.03

Abstract

Sequestration of atmospheric CO2 in the soil, as stable soil organic matter, provides a long lasting solution to decrease the CO2 in the atmosphere. The soil organic carbon pool was estimated in forests, tree plantations, horticulture and grasslands in the Garhwal area of Himalayan region which has wide variety of land uses and land cover. The forestry species included Shorea robusta, Cedrus deodara, Quercus leucotrichophora, Pinus roxburghii, Picea smithiana & Abies pindrow, Pinus wallichiana and Miscellaneous species. Pyrus malus, Psidium guava, Mangifera indica, Citrus spp. and Lichee chinensis were the major fruit crops and the tree plantations comprised of Eucalyptus spp., Tectona grandis, Dalbergia sissoo and Pinus roxburghii. SOC pool was the maximum in the forest lands followed by grass lands, orchards and plantation areas. Differences in SOC pool under different land uses were statistically significant (p < 0.05). The forests had 15.84 million tons (78.49 t ha-1) soil organic carbon pool in this region and P. smithiana & A. pindrow forests had higher mitigation potential as they can store more than double SOC pool as compared to S. robusta. The soils under orchards contained 1.40 million tons SOC pool which is 13.05% of the total SOC pool of the orchards of Uttarakhand state. P. malus had the mitigation potential of 2.71 which indicates that it can have more than double SOC pool as compared to P. guava. SOC Pool in the grasslands was 75.76 t ha-1.

Highlights

Concentration of atmospheric CO2 can be lowered either by reducing emissions or by taking CO2 out from the atmosphere and stored in the terrestrial, oceanic or aquatic ecosystems
The results of this study have provided the authentic and comprehensive estimates of the SOC pool under different land uses and vegetation covers
Under horticulture land use the SOC was estimated in P.malus, P. guava, M. indica, Citrus spp. and L. chinensis orchards and under plantation land use the SOC was estimated in block plantations of Eucalyptus spp., T. grandis, D. sissoo and P. roxburghii

Summary

Introduction

Concentration of atmospheric CO2 can be lowered either by reducing emissions or by taking CO2 out from the atmosphere and stored in the terrestrial, oceanic or aquatic ecosystems. Several studies have established the fact that carbon sequestration by trees could provide relatively low cost net emission reductions[1,2,3,4]. Most of the carbon enters the ecosystem through the process of photosynthesis in the leaves. The detritus is decomposed and forms soil organic carbon by microbial process. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has recognized soil organic carbon pool as one of the five major carbon pools for the Land Use Land Use Change in Forestry sector. It is mandatory for all nations to provide soil organic carbon pool and changes from LULUCF sector under National Communications to the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change

Methods

Results

Conclusion