Soil Organic Carbon Store under Different Land Use Systems in Giri Catchment of Himachal Pradesh

Abstract

Soil samples for the estimation of organic carbon store were collected from the entire catchment area starting from Rajban to origin of Giri and all the land uses were covered to estimate soil organic carbon. Soil organic carbon store in Giri catchment was estimated (up to the depth of 30 cm), and observed that maximum SOC store (93.47 t ha^-1 ) was in the soils under Kail + Silver fir and Spruce forests and Kail + Quercus forests followed by Deodar forests (82.14 t ha^-1). Soil organic carbon store under miscellaneous forests (57.66 t ha^-1) and chir forests (57.33 t ha^-1 ) was similar and the least SOC store was under sal forests (47.29 t/ha). Under agriculture land use, in cropping srstem soil organic store was 53.62 t ha^-1 while under orchards it was 53.96 t ha^-1. Altitude wise maxImum soil organic carbon pool was in the soils located above the altitude of 2500 m (91.37 t ha^-1 ) followed by 2000-2500 m ( 88.68 t ha^-1). The least SOC store was in the soils located below 1000 m (54.34 t ha^-1). Girl catchment has 8,165,593.15 tones (8.16 million tons) soil organic carbon store in the forest area and under agriculture land use soil organic carbon store is 3,167,521.58 tones (3.16 million tons).