Quantifying the Unvoiced Carbon Pools of the Nilgiri Hill Region in the Western Ghats Global Biodiversity Hotspot—First Report

M. Jagadesh, Cherukumalli Srinivasarao, Duraisamy Selvi, Subramanium Thiyageshwari, Thangavel Kalaiselvi, Aradhna Kumari, Santhosh Kumar Singh, Keisar Lourdusamy, Ramalingam Kumaraperumal, Victor Allan, Munmun Dash, P. Raja, U. Surendran and Biswajit Pramanick ()
Additional contact information
M. Jagadesh: Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore 641003, Tamil Nadu, India
Cherukumalli Srinivasarao: Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)-National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM), Hyderabad 500030, Telangana, India
Duraisamy Selvi: Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore 641003, Tamil Nadu, India
Subramanium Thiyageshwari: Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore 641003, Tamil Nadu, India
Thangavel Kalaiselvi: Department of Agricultural Microbiology, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore 641003, Tamil Nadu, India
Aradhna Kumari: College of Agriculture, Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Vidisha, Ganj Basoda 464221, Madhya Pradesh, India
Santhosh Kumar Singh: Department of Soil Science, Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agriculture University, Samastipur, Pusa 848125, Bihar, India
Keisar Lourdusamy: Department of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore 641003, Tamil Nadu, India
Ramalingam Kumaraperumal: Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore 641003, Tamil Nadu, India
Victor Allan: Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore 641003, Tamil Nadu, India
Munmun Dash: Department of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore 641003, Tamil Nadu, India
P. Raja: ICAR-Indian Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Research Center, Ooty 643004, Tamil Nadu, India
U. Surendran: Centre for Water Resources Development and Management, Kozhikode 673571, Kerala, India
Biswajit Pramanick: Department of Agronomy, Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agriculture University, Samastipur, Pusa 848125, Bihar, India

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-22

Abstract: Accelerating land-use change (LUC) in the Nilgiri Hill Region (NHR) has caused its land to mortify. Although this deterioration has been documented, the destruction of buried gem soil has not been reported. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the impact of LUC on soil-carbon dynamics in the six major ecosystems in the NHR: croplands (CLs), deciduous forests (DFs), evergreen forests (EFs), forest plantations (FPs), scrublands (SLs), and tea plantations (TPs). Sampling was conducted at selected sites of each ecosystem at three depth classes (0–15, 15–30, and 30–45 cm) to quantify the carbon pools (water-soluble carbon, water-soluble carbohydrates, microbial biomass carbon, microbial biomass nitrogen, dehydrogenase, and different fractions of particulate organic carbon). We found that the LUC significantly decreased the concentration of carbon in the altered ecosystems (49.44–78.38%), with the highest being recorded at EF (10.25%) and DF (7.15%). In addition, the effects of the LUC on the aggregate size of the organic carbon were dissimilar across all the aggregate sizes. The relatively high inputs of the aboveground plant residues and the richer fine-root biomass were accountable for the higher concentration of carbon pools in the untouched EFs and DFs compared to the SLs, FPs, TPs, and CLs. The results of the land-degradation Index (LDI) depicted the higher vulnerability of TP (−72.67) and CL (−79.00). Thus, our findings highlight the global importance of LUC to soil quality. Henceforth, the conservation of carbon pools in fragile ecosystems, such as the NHR, is crucial to keep soils alive and achieve land-degradation neutrality.

Keywords: land-degradation index; land-use change; soil-carbon pools; soil biological activity; Western Ghats (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/6/5520/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/6/5520/ (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:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:6:p:5520-:d:1103429

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

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