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Soil carbon sequestration: an innovative strategy for reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration

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Abstract

Global warming due to increasing greenhouse gases emission and the subsequent climatic changes are the most serious environmental challenges faced by environmental scientists, academicians, regulatory agencies and policy makers worldwide. Among the various greenhouse gases, CO2 constitutes a major share and its concentration is increasing rapidly. Therefore, there is perhaps an urgent need to formulate suitable policies and programs that can firmly reduce and sequester CO2 emissions in a sustainable way. In order to combat the predicted disaster due to rising CO2 level, several CO2 capture and storage technologies and medium are being widely pursued and deliberated. Among them soil carbon sequestration (SCS) is gaining global attention because of its stability and role in long-term surface reservoir, natural low cost and eco-friendly means to combat climate change. Apart from the carbon capturing, the process of soil carbon stabilization also provides other tangible benefits that includes achieving food security, by improving soil quality, wasteland reclamation and preventing soil erosion. The present article aimed to address all these concerns and provide strategies and critical research needs to implement SCS as a mitigation option for increasing atmospheric CO2 level and its future directions.

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Acknowledgments

Authors are thankful to Dr. C. S. Nautiyal, Director, CSIR-National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow India for providing facilities and support. Thanks are also due to two anonymous reviewers and the guest editors for their valuable suggestions to the previous versions of the manuscript. The funds to carry out this work were received from CSIR, New Delhi under NWP-020.

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  1. National Botanical Research Institute, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, Rana Pratap Marg, Lucknow, 226 001, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Pankaj Srivastava, Amrit Kumar, Soumit K. Behera & Nandita Singh

  2. Environmental Science Division, Department of Botany, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, 226 007, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Yogesh K. Sharma

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  1. Pankaj Srivastava
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  2. Amrit Kumar
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  3. Soumit K. Behera
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Correspondence to Soumit K. Behera.

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Srivastava, P., Kumar, A., Behera, S.K. et al. Soil carbon sequestration: an innovative strategy for reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Biodivers Conserv 21, 1343–1358 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-012-0229-y

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