Carbon Sequestration Potentials of Different Land Uses in Wondo Genet Sub-Catchment, Southern Ethiopia

Habitamu Taddese, Mesele Negash, Tariku Geda and Gebiaw T. Ayele ()
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Habitamu Taddese: Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources, Hawassa University, Shashemene P.O. Box 128, Ethiopia
Mesele Negash: Wondo Genet College of Forestry and Natural Resources, Hawassa University, Shashemene P.O. Box 128, Ethiopia
Tariku Geda: Ethiopian Biodiversity Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, Addis Ababa P.O. Box 30726, Ethiopia
Gebiaw T. Ayele: Australian Rivers Institute and School of Engineering and Built Environment, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD 4111, Australia

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 12, 1-14

Abstract: Forests play an important role in combating the challenges posed by changing climate through sequestering carbon in their living biomasses and the soil. Tropical forests, which harbour a large number of species, are anticipated to play a great role in this regard due to the favourable growing environments. However, there is limited knowledge of the variability in carbon stock among land use types and its relationship with biodiversity. Therefore, this study assessed the variability in storing the different carbon pools among natural forest, woodland and khat plantation land use types. It also explored the relationship between biodiversity and carbon storage in the different carbon pools. Plant inventory and sample collection were undertaken following standard methods. In addition, soil samples were taken at three depth profile classes of 0–30 cm (top layer), 30–60 cm (middle layer) and 60–100 cm (bottom layer). Results of the study revealed that there was no statistically significant relationship between biodiversity and total biomass carbon, soil organic carbon or total carbon stock at a 95% level of confidence. The results indicated that the natural forest had the highest plant biomass (456.93 Mg ha −1 ) followed by woodland (19.78 Mg ha −1 ) and khat plantation (2.46 Mg ha −1 ). Consequently, the total carbon stock estimate of the natural forest (366.47 Mg ha −1 ) was significantly larger than that of the woodland (141.85 Mg ha −1 ) and khat plantation (125.86 Mg ha −1 ). The variation in total carbon stock among land use types arises from the variation in the total biomass carbon stock. The study results also revealed that soil organic carbon stock decreased with soil depth in all the land-use types. The findings of this study have implication of improving topsoil management in monoculture crops such as khat plantation and conserving natural forests for enhancing carbon sequestration potentials.

Keywords: carbon stock; dry Afromontane forest; biodiversity; soil organic carbon; biomass carbon; soil depth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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