Soil organic carbon store in different land uses and land covers in Bageshwar district of Uttarakhand.
Gupta M. K., Sharma S. D.
Author Affiliation: Forest Soil & Land Reclamation Division, Forest Research Institute, Dehra Dun - 248 006 (Uttarakhand), India.
Annals of Forestry 19 : 237-244
Abstract : A study was conducted to generate the information on Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) pool under forests and orchards in Bageshwar district of Uttarakhand. Soil Organic Carbon pool was estimated in Deodar (Cedrus deodara), Quercus (Quercus leucotrichophora), Chir (Pinus roxburghii) and Miscellaneous forests under forest land use. Under horticulture land use, SOC was estimated in Mango and Guava orchards. The forest soils contained higher amounts of SOC in comparison to the soils supporting orchards. Soils under Deodar forests had maximum SOC pool (128.29 t ha-1) followed by Quercus (109.63 t ha-1), Miscellaneous (73.89 t ha-1) and Chir (71.46 t ha-1). SOC pool under Deodar and Quercus was significantly different from the SOC pool under Chir and Miscellaneous species. Mitigation potential was the maximum under Deodar (1.79) and Quercus (1.53) while under Miscellaneous and Chir it was nearly similar. SOC pool under Guava was higher (62.01 t ha-1) as compared to Mango (54.00 t ha-1). The SOC pool in the forests owned by Forest Department, Revenue Department, Van Panchayats and privately owned in Bageshwer district was 92,73,268.80 tonnes (9.27 million tonnes) where the soil contained an average of 84.18 t ha-1 of OC.