Land uses appraisal for biomass production and carbon stock in the lower-Himalaya ecosystem, India

Abstract

The Indian Himalayan region represents various land uses based on people’s needs and site-specific characteristics developed over the years. These land use changes (LUC) have attractive, wide and promising potential to store carbon and remove atmospheric carbon dioxide through enhanced growth of trees. The present investigation was carried out at Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand which a part of Lower-Himalaya, India. In this study to assess aboveground biomass trees for height and diameter at breast height measured and followed the equation biomass × 0.50 to assess the carbon stock in different land uses. In Chirpine Forest (CF), significantly highest vegetation biomass carbon (~106 Mg ha–1) was recorded followed by mango orchard (~72 Mg ha–1), peach orchard (~49 Mg ha–1) and agrihorticulture (~38 Mg ha–1). It was reported in this order agri-silviculture (35 Mg ha–1) >agri-silvi-horticulture (~21 Mg ha–1) > lemonpomegranate orchard (~14 Mg ha–1) > apple orchard (13.5 Mg ha–1) > guava orchard (~10 Mg ha–1). Thus, these land uses are not only remunerative to the farmers but also contributing towards tapping of atmospheric CO2vis-à-vis mitigation of greenhouse gases. These results suggest restoration of degraded land to forest land and decrease in intensity of land use could increase carbon storage in the study area as well as other similar mountainous regions of Indian Lower-Himalayas.