Carbon sequestration potential of Populus deltoides plantation under social forestry scheme in Kurukshetra,Haryana in Northern India

The role of plantation forests as carbon reservoirs is considered crucial for improving predictions about the effects of land use and land cover changes on the global carbon cycle. tree growth serves as an important means to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide in vegetation,soils and biomass. estimation of vegetation and soil carbon stock of populus deltoides plantation under social forestry scheme in kurukshetra,haryana in northern india was carried out over a period of one year. the study revealed that the plantation had a significant carbon sequestration potential with vegetation carbon stock of 88.45 mg/ha in different tree components with a carbon flux of 4.6 mg/ha/yr. the net primary productivity of the plantation in terms of biomass accumulation was 9.74 mg/ha/yr assimilating 16.97 mg/ha/yr of carbon dioxide. the total stc stock of the plantation was 76.97 mg/ha up to one meter depth of soil. highest contribution (61-70%) to the percent weight of whole soil was from micro-aggregates whereas maximum amount of organic carbon (0.06-0.63%) was found in macro-aggregates in all depths. the soil microbial biomass carbon was found to be declining down the depth,being higher in rainy season,(117-355 μgg-1 of soil) compared to winter and spring seasons.