Soil organic carbon pool under different land uses in Tehri Garhwal district of Uttarakhand

Abstract

The concept of carbon sequestration emerged in eighties due to the consequences of steadily increasing level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. No systematic study has been undertaken to estimate the soil organic carbon pool in forests of Uttarakhand, by following uniform methodology for field and laboratory work. This study was conducted in three land uses viz. Forests, Plantations and Horticulture in Tehri Garhwal district. Under forests land use, SOC pool was estimated in Sal, Deodar, Quercus, Chir, Silver fir, Miscellaneous and Kail forests up to 30 cm depth. Under Horticulture land use SOC was estimated in Apple and Letchi and under plantation land use SOC was estimated in Block plantations of Eucalyptus, Chir, Teak and Thuja. Over all 413 soil samples were collected from different locations. Soil organic carbon, bulk density and coarse fragments were estimated in collected samples and SOC pool was calculated by using the equation as suggested by IPCC Good Practice Guidance for LULUCF. Maximum SOC pool (140.95 t/ha) was estimated under Deodar followed by silver fir (134.90 t/ha), Quercus 99.18 t/ha, Sal (81.62 t/ha), Chir (73.52 t/ha), Kail (67.11 t/ha), while Miscellaneous forests has the minimum SOC pool (53.88 t/ha) in Tehri Garhwal district. SOC pool was higher (81.81 t/ha) in the soils under Apple orchards as compared to Letchi orchards (49.95 t/ha). Maximum SOC pool was estimated in the soils under Thuja (54.01 t/ha) followed by Teak (39.43 t/ha), Chir (36.68 t/ha) and the least was under Eucalyptus (31.35 t/ha). On an average Tehri Garhwal’s forests have 93.02 t/ha SOC pool while orchards have 65.88 t/ha and plantations have 40.37 t/ha.