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IMPACT OF LAND USE CHANGES ON ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN KULLU DISTRICT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH

KrishiKosh

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Title IMPACT OF LAND USE CHANGES ON ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN KULLU DISTRICT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH
 
Creator SINGH, PRAKRITI
 
Contributor BHARDWAJ, S.K.
 
Subject You have exceeded your usage quota. Please contact gshukla [at] iitk.ac.in
ecosystem services in Kullu ,land use,Impact
 
Description ABSTRACT
The present investigation entitled ?Impact of land use changes on ecosystem services in Kullu District of Himachal Pradesh? was conducted during the year 2014-15 in the Department of Environmental Science, Dr. Y.S. Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh. In order to identify the land use changes a survey was conducted to get people?s perception in mid-hills of Kullu district by selecting three blocks: Kullu, Banjar and Naggar. The dominant land use systems namely, forest, traditional agriculture, orchard and urban were selected to assess their impact on ecosystem services viz., soil, water quality and SOC stock in winter and summer seasons. In mid-hills of Kullu district, people perceived that over the last 30 years the area under urban and orchard land use has increased although under traditional agriculture and vegetable based system has gradually decreased. Also, the availability and quality of water was perceived to be decreased over 30 years. The results were justified with secondary data collected from the Department of Revenue, Government of Himachal Pradesh and laboratory analysis of soil and water samples collected from different land use systems. The soils of selected land use systems were normal in reaction and salt concentration. The urban land use system contained the lowest SOC of 0.46% and the highest was under forest. The microbial biomass trend was forest> orchard> traditional agriculture> urban land use; the lowest available NPK contents of 239.71, 15.54 and 114.02 kg ha-1, respectively were observed under urban land use (highest under orchard as of 460.35, 26.54 and 315.07 kg ha-1, respectively). The total microbial count followed the trend as forest> orchard> traditional agriculture> urban. The carbon stock for the forest was observed to be the highest (1251.20 Gg C) but the urban land use depicted the lowest (15.71 Gg C). Although the bulk density was observed to be the highest in the urban land use (1.56 g cm-3) and the lowest was reported under forest (1.09 g cm-3). The heavy metal content in soil was under permissible limits as prescribed by ISI (1992) and WHO (1993), except for Fe which varied from 6049.31 to 6365.35 mg kg-1. The surface water under urban land use was having highest COD (38.88 mg l-1) and BOD (9.03 mg l-1) which was above permissible limits as prescribed by ISI and WHO. Although the ground water was observed to have relatively lower COD (26.63 mg l-1) and BOD (5.05 mg l-1). The heavy metal content in both surface and ground water was under permissible limits as prescribed by ISI and WHO, except for Pb which was highest (0.15 mg l-1) in surface water under urban land use. Therefore, on the basis of the present study it is concluded that in mid-hills of Kullu district of HP the traditional agriculture has been replaced by orchards and urban areas which has started impacting the ecosystem services like soil, water quality and carbon sequestration.
 
Date 2016-11-22T12:48:34Z
2016-11-22T12:48:34Z
2015
 
Type Thesis
 
Identifier 48351
http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/86925
 
Language en
 
Format application/pdf