Carbon sequestration in Chir-Pine (Pinus roxburghii Sarg.) forests under various disturbance levels in Kumaun Central Himalaya

Abstract

We studied variations in tree biomass and carbon sequestration rates of Chir Pine (Pinus roxburghii. Sarg.) forest in three categories of forest disturbance, protected, moderately disturbed, and highly disturbed. In the first year, total biomass was 14.7 t·ha⁻¹ in highly disturbed site, 94.46 t·ha⁻¹ in moderately disturbed forest, and 112.0 t·ha⁻¹ in protected forest. The soil organic carbon in the top 20 cm of soil ranged from 0.63 to 1.2%. The total rate of carbon sequestration was 0.60 (t/ha)·a⁻¹ on the highly disturbed site, 1.03 (t/ha)·a⁻¹ on the moderately disturbed site, and 4.3 (t/ha)·a⁻¹ on the protected site.

Keywords

carbon sequestration / soil organic carbon (SOC) / disturbed forest / vegetation analysis / allometric equations

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