Profile distribution of soil organic carbon fractions under different landforms in the Meghalaya plateau of India

Mourya, Krishna Kumar; Jena, Roomesh Kumar; Ray, Prasenjit; Ramachandran, S.; Sharma, Gulshan; Hota, Surabhi; Ray, S.K.

doi:10.36953/ecj.2021.22302

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 35 publications

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“…Natural woods had the highest levels of WBC, while paddy soils had the lowest. Higher WBC under natural forest systems under different ecoregions of the world was recorded by many researchers (Prasad et al, 2019;Mourya et al, 2021;WANI et al, 2022). The addition of high levels of inputs, such as leaf litter and root biomass, as well as its recalcitrant nature, high altitude, low temperature, slow rate of mineralization, and role in the augmentation of soil aggregates and ultimately increasing soil OC content, all, contribute to high WBC in natural forests (Nath et al, 2018).…”

Section: Effect Of Land Use Systems On Distribution Of Toc and Wbcmentioning

confidence: 93%

Soil carbon dynamics in the temperate Himalayas: Impact of land use management

Kumar

Wani

Mir

et al. 2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Food security and environmental health are directly linked with soil carbon (C). Soil C plays a crucial role in securing food and livelihood security for the Himalayan population besides maintaining the ecological balance in the Indian Himalayas. However, soil C is being severely depleted due to anthropogenic activities. It is well known that land use management strongly impacted the soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics and also regulates the atmospheric C chemistry. Different types of cultivation practices, i.e., forest, plantations, and crops in the Kashmir Himalayas, India, has different abilities to conserve SOC and emit C in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2). Hence, five prominent land use systems (LUC) (e.g., natural forest, natural grassland, maize-field-converted from the forest, plantation, and paddy crop) of Kashmir Himalaya were evaluated to conserve SOC, reduce C emissions, improve soil properties and develop understanding SOC pools and its fractions variations under different land use management practices. The results revealed that at 0–20 cm and 20–40 cm profile, the soil under natural forest conserved the highest total organic carbon (TOC, 24.24 g kg−1 and 18.76 g kg−1), Walkley-black carbon (WBC, 18.23 g kg−1 and 14.10 g kg−1), very-labile-carbon (VLC, 8.65 g kg−1, and 6.30 g kg−1), labile-carbon (LC, 3.58 g kg−1 and 3.14 g kg−1), less-labile-carbon (VLC, 2.59 g kg−1, and 2.00 g kg−1), non-labile-carbon (NLC, 3.41 g kg−1 and 2.66 g kg-1), TOC stock (45.88 Mg ha−1 and 41.16 Mg ha−1), WBC stock (34.50 Mg ha−1 and 30.94 Mg ha−1), active carbon pools (AC, 23.14 Mg ha−1 and 20.66 Mg ha−1), passive carbon pools (PC, 11.40 Mg ha−1 and 10.26 Mg ha−1) and carbon management index (CMI, 100), followed by the natural grassland. However, the lowest C storage was reported in paddy cropland. The soils under natural forest and natural grassland systems had a greater amount of VLC, LC, LLC, and NLC fraction than other land uses at both depths. On the other hand, maize-field-converted-from-forest-land-use soils had a higher proportion of NLC fraction than paddy soils; nonetheless, the NLC pool was maximum in natural forest soil. LUS based on forest crops maintains more SOC, while agricultural crops, such as paddy and maize, tend to emit more C in the Himalayan region. Therefore, research findings suggest that SOC under the Kashmir Himalayas can be protected by adopting suitable LUS, namely forest soil protection, and by placing some areas under plantations. The areas under the rice and maize fields emit more CO2, hence, there is a need to adopt the conservation effective measure to conserve the SOC without compromising farm productivity.

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Section: Effect Of Land Use Systems On Distribution Of Toc and Wbcmentioning

confidence: 93%