Carbon Stock of Selected Tree Species in A Community Managed Tropical Forest of Rupandehi District, Western Nepal

Abstract

Forest ecosystems play a critical role in the global carbon cycle, sequestering CO2 through photosynthesis and storing carbon in plant biomass and in soil organic matter. So, forests have asignificant potential to capture carbon and thus could play important role in climate change mitigation. Tropical forest also plays a significant role in carbon stock and climate change. For the present study four forest sites (1,2.3 and 5) was selected out of the seven sites of the community forest,(1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7) , sites 1 and 2 were dominated by Dalbergia sissoo and sites 3 and 5 were dominated by Shorea robusta. The forest sites 1 and 2 was collectively taken as the Dalbergia sissoo dominated sites, similarly site 3 and 5 was collectively taken as Shorearobusta dominated sites. For this study about 32 Quadrats of size 10×10 m were laid randomly.Altogether biomass and soil carbon stock of 16 Quadtrats of each dominated site were compared.The biomass was converted to carbon stock. Soil was sampled from the depth of 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm in each site. Total of 64 soil samples were collected. The sampled soils were air dried and brought to the laboratory for the further analysis. Bulk density and soil carbon stock were calculated at different horizontal depth of 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm. Then, biomass carbon and soilcarbon were summed up to get total carbon stock.The mean biomass, biomass carbon stock and soil carbon stock of the selected sites of Community Forest of Karahiya VDC were 436.60 Mg/ha, 205.12 C Mg/ha, 66.21 C Mg/ha. From the research it was found that the total mean biomass carbon stock was not significantly different in sites dominated by Dalbergia sissoo and Shorea robusta. The total mean biomass carbon stock were 221.70 C Mg/ha and 188.55 Mg/ha in the Dalbergia sissoo and Shorearobusta dominated sites.The mean soil carbon stock in Shorearobusta dominated sites of the forest was significantly higher (81.40 Mg/ha) than in the Dalbergia sissoo dominated sites(51.00Mg/ha). Soil carbon stock and soil bulk density were not significantly different with depth. The bulk density at different depth were not significantly different 0.935 gm/cm at 0-10 cm and 0.944 gm/cm 3 at 10-20cm. The total mean bulk density in Dalbergia sissoo and Shorea robusta dominated site were not significantly different 0.957 gm/cm 3 .Keywords: Tropical Community forest, Dalbergia sissoo, Shorea robusta, Biomass carbon stock, Soil carbon stock.