Trees outside forest (TOFs) aids in mitigating global climatic change through carbon sequestration: Example from academic institutional landscapes

Abstract

TOF including urban and other plantations like road side, homestead gardens, residential areas or in various institutional or academic landscapes make positive contribution to living conditions of different towns and cities. The present work reports the amount of biomass and its contribution to carbon stock of different woody perrennials in the campus of Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, West Bengal, India. The study was carried out by enumerating the entire study area for volume estimation and further calculation was done through validated methodologies. A total of 1816 numbers of individuals with dbh ≥ 10 cm of 95 woody perennials species belonging to 79 genera and 38 families were enlisted. Out of 95 species, the contribution was dominated by 52 forestry tree species followed by road side plantation (21) and fruit crops (14). A total of 812.211 Mg ha−1 of biomass was recorded from the woody tree species with 79.40% contribution from above ground biomass (AGB) and 20.60% (BGB) below ground biomass. In the AGB forestry tree species showed dominance in terms of contribution (322.95 Mg ha−1) followed by plantation crops (169.695 Mg ha−1), road side plantation (107.069 Mg ha−1) and least by fruit crops (45.190 Mg ha−1). The overall carbon stock found was 403.176 Mg Cha−1 with highest contribution from forestry tree species (200.53 Mg Cha−1) followed by plantation crops (106.720 Mg C ha−1) and least by fruit crops (28.470 Mg Cha−1). The study recommends plantaion of more and more woody species across the academic landscapes especially with threatened category flora for conservation and carbon sequestration for mitigating global climate change. TOFs will have to play an important role for sustaining future generations due to shrinking of other forest landuse systems.