Assessment of Carbon Sequestration in Agriculture and Agroforestry Systems

Abstract

Agriculture and forestry sectors can be sinks for CO through carbon 2 sequestration into biomass and soil organic matter and is considered as a win-win strategy for sustainable crop productivity and environmental protection. Soil organic carbon plays a critical role in cycling of essential nutrients, improve the soil physical, chemical and biological properties, reduce soil erosion, arrests land degradation, prolongs the moisture availability thus contributing to soil health, agriculture growth and environmental services. Carbon content of majority of Indian soils is low and there is vast potential to enhance the soil carbon stocks. Restoration of degraded lands can sequester up to 9 Tg C annually and part of the potential can be realized with the current technology and by integrating with the developmental programs. Out of the 120 m ha of degraded area of the country, adoption of appropriate land use and management practices can arrest further degradation thus results in higher biomass and promotes higher soil C accumulation. Maintaining or enhancing organic carbon is a slow process particularly in tropical regions where rapid decomposition of organic matter results in loss of carbon. Results of a number of experiments conducted in India and abroad conclusively proves the potential, however the rates of sequestration have been low. There is a need to develop location specific management practices for enhancing the carbon stocks for various production systems and studies on strategies for enhancing soil carbon stocks and developing appropriate tree systems are at a nascent stage in India. A number of experiments were initiated in network mode by several organizations in the country and C sequestration potential and C stocks inventory is in progress under NICRA. This bulletin outlines brief overview of carbon sequestration and step by step procedure for quantification of carbon in soils and tree systems in a simple manner. We firmly believe that this publication will be very useful for researchers, academicians, policy makers and students and for estimating C stocks in NICRA long term experiments. We thank all those who have contributed towards the completion of this publication.