Performance Analysis and Soil Quality Indexing for Dalbergia sissoo Roxb. Grown in Marginal and Degraded Land of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, India

Sheikh Adil Edrisi, Vishal Tripathi and Purushothaman Chirakkuzhyil Abhilash
Additional contact information
Sheikh Adil Edrisi: Institute of Environment & Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India
Vishal Tripathi: Institute of Environment & Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India
Purushothaman Chirakkuzhyil Abhilash: Institute of Environment & Sustainable Development, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi 221005, India

Land, 2019, vol. 8, issue 4, 1-19

Abstract: The successful utilization of marginal and degraded lands for biomass and bioenergy production depends upon various factors such as climatic conditions, the adaptive traits of the tree species and their growth rate and respective belowground responses. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the growth performance of a bioenergy tree ( Dalbergia sissoo Roxb.) grown in marginal and degraded land of the Mirzapur district of Uttar Pradesh, India and to analyze the effect of D. sissoo plantations on soil quality improvement over the study years. For this, a soil quality index (SQI) was developed based on principal component analysis (PCA) to understand the effect of D. sissoo plantations on belowground responses. PCA results showed that among the studied soil variables, bulk density (BD), moisture content (MC), microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and soil urease activity (SUA) are the key variables critically influencing the growth of D. sissoo . The SQI was found in an increasing order with the growth period of D. sissoo . (i.e., from 0.419 during the first year to 0.579 in the fourth year). A strong correlation was also observed between the growth attributes (diameter at breast height, R 2 = 0.870; and plant height, R 2 = 0.861) and the soil quality ( p < 0.01). Therefore, the developed SQI can be used as key indicator for monitoring the restoration potential of D. sissoo growing in marginal and degraded lands and also for adopting suitable interventions to further improve soil quality for multipurpose land restoration programs, thereby attaining land degradation neutrality and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Keywords: bioenergy production; energy security; land degradation neutrality; marginal lands; principal component analysis; restoration; sustainable development goals; soil quality indexing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/8/4/63/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/8/4/63/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:8:y:2019:i:4:p:63-:d:222800

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().