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Carbon stocks of tree plantations in a Western Ghats landscape, India: influencing factors and management implications

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Abstract

Biomass and carbon stock assessments in data-deficient plantations and identifying the factors influencing tree growth, distribution, and carbon stocks are extremely important for implementing sound silvicultural management and monitoring practices to achieve REDD+ goals. We conducted carbon stock assessments in five major plantation types in a regional landscape in the central Western Ghats, India, by establishing fifty 0.1-ha plots across the landscape. We quantified the overall carbon stocks by summing the carbon pools across mature trees, deadwood, and soil (0 –15 cm) components. Allometric equations were compared to address the uncertainty in the tree biomass carbon. The tree biomass carbon and soil organic carbon varied significantly across the plantation types (F = 55.23, p < 0.00). The present study yielded the highest carbon stocks in Pinus plantation (201.91 ± 9.52 Mg ha−1) and the least in Eucalyptus (122.63 ± 9.73 Mg ha−1). The correlation analysis displayed a strong influence of mean annual precipitation and edaphic factors on soil organic carbon, while basal area and elevation were good predictors of tree biomass carbon. The principal component analysis revealed an association of predictor variables in the distribution of plantation types. We found a strong association between mean annual precipitation on Pinus plantation and mean annual temperature on Eucalyptus and Acacia plantations. On the other hand, teak pure plantation was associated with structural and topographic variables, while edaphic factors mainly influenced the distribution of teak mixed plantations. The findings of the present study conclude substantial carbon storage ability of the plantations in the studied landscape which can play a significant role in mitigating the effects of climate change and reaching carbon neutrality.

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Data availability

The data presented in this study are available on a reasonable request from the corresponding author(s). Due to privacy concerns and MoU between the parties, the data are not publicly accessible since they are being used to create other reports for funders.

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Acknowledgements

This research was carried out as part of a project, “Biodiversity characterization at community level in India using Earth observation data.” We thank the Karnataka Forest Department for granting the necessary permissions for project execution. Thanks to the watchers, deputy rangers, and range forest officers of SWS and territorial ranges of Mandagadde and Ripponpet for their timely help in executing fieldwork. We thank the anonymous reviewers for providing valuable comments that improved the quality of the manuscript.

Funding

This work was supported by the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. India under grant No.BT/Coord.II/10/02/2016/22.03.2018. First author thanks Indian Council of Social Science Research for providing short-term doctoral fellowship (RFD/Short-Term/2022-23/ENV/ST/66).

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  1. Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, School of Life Sciences, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, 605 014, India

    Kanda Naveen Babu, Shreyas Mandyam, Sourabh Jetty, Ashaq Ahmad Dar, Sundarapandian Somaiah & Parthasarathy Narayanaswamy

  2. Department of Ecology, French Institute of Pondicherry, St. Louis Street, Puducherry, 605 001, India

    Kanda Naveen Babu, Shreyas Mandyam, Sourabh Jetty, Kurian Ayushi & Ayyappan Narayanan

  3. Centre for Doctoral Studies, Directorate of Research, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka, 576 104, India

    Kurian Ayushi

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Contributions

KNB and NA designed the study. KNB, SM, and SJ contributed to the fieldwork. KNB, SM, AAD, and KA performed the analysis and generated results. KNB and SM wrote the original draft of the manuscript. AAD, KA, NA, SMS, and NP reviewed and edited the manuscript. NA, SMS, and NP supervised the study and provided resources. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Ayyappan Narayanan.

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Babu, K.N., Mandyam, S., Jetty, S. et al. Carbon stocks of tree plantations in a Western Ghats landscape, India: influencing factors and management implications. Environ Monit Assess 195, 404 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-023-10964-w

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