Carbon sequestration: status of soil organic carbon pool under different vegetation covers in Pithoragarh district, Uttarakhand, India.
Gupta M. K., Sharma S. D.
Author Affiliation: Forest Soil & Land Reclamation Division, Forest Research Institute, Dehra Dun (Uttarakhand), India.
Annals of Forestry 20 : 17-25
Abstract : Concentration of atmospheric CO2 can be lowered either by reducing emissions or by taking CO2 out from the atmosphere. Soil is one of the major store houses of carbon which is sequestered for a long period in the form of humus. This study was therefore, conducted in three land uses viz. Forests, Horticulture and Tree Plantation in Pithoragarh district of Uttarakhand, India to estimate the amount of soil organic carbon pool under different land uses and to assess the mitigation potential of different vegetation covers in terms of CO2 sequestration. The forestry species included Shorea robusta, Cedrus deodara, Quercus leucotrichophora, Pinus roxburghii, Pinus wallichiana and Miscellaneous species. Psidium guava and Mangifera indica were the major fruit crops and Cypress cashmeriana was the plantation species. SOC pool was the maximum in the forest lands followed by plantation and orchards. SOC pool between groups i.e. forests, plantation and horticultures, was statistically significantly different at 0.05 level. The forests had 13.78 million tonnes (78.49 t ha-1) soil organic carbon pool in this district and C. deodara forests had higher mitigation potential as they can store more than 1.5 times SOC pool as compared to S. robusta. SOC Pool in the C. cashmeriana plantation was 62.16 t ha-1. P. guava orchards had little higher SOC pool (50.38 t ha-1) as compared to M. indica orchards (46.53 t ha-1). The soils under orchards contained 0.78 million tons SOC pool which was 7.24% of total horticultural SOC pool of Uttarakhand state.