The Chronological Advancement of Soil Organic Carbon Sequestration Research: A Review

Abstract

According to Kyoto protocol carbon seques- tration in terrestrial ecosystem is a low cost option to mitigate the increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. It has been understood that the world's forests and their soils have a high potential to sequester the atmospheric carbon. For the last two decades there has been increasing interest among scientists in terrestrial soil carbon storage processes. This review made an attempt to summarize the major chronological advancement of soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration research and also to underpin the problems yet to be focused on this research at global level. SOC sequestration research began in the early seventies, where most of the studies were estimating the size/stock of the global SOC. In the early eighties, most of the researchers have started to focus on the factors involved in the storage of organic carbon in different ecosystems. Subsequently, the researchers started to work on different types of SOC pools, their size, turnover and chemical characterization in different types of ecosystems. Recently the researcher's main focus has been the temperature sensitivity of organic carbon in different types of soil and their mechanism of stabilization. There has been interest among researchers on the contribution of microbial derived (microbial necro- mass) carbon in recalcitrant pool of SOC and their sequestration process in different types of ecosystems. Arguably, the contribution in SOC sequestration research on the fate of sequestered carbon in different types of soil and their stabilization mechanisms is insufficient. India is the country spread over regions from temperate to dry desert zones with different types of fragile ecosystems and its vulnerable nature to the global climate change. There- fore, the future research must focus on SOC sensitivity to temperature and SOC stabilization mechanisms in different ecosystems for better understanding of the soil carbon cycle.