Assessing Biodiversity and Carbon Estimation of Tree Outsides of Forest in Parwanipur Rural Municipality of Central Nepal Volume 6 - Issue 1

Divyanshu Pandey¹, Yogendra Yadav²*, Jeetendra Gautam³ and Ramesh Kumar Pandey⁴

• ¹Principal Author: Divyanshu Pandey, Faculty of Forestry, Agriculture and Forestry University, Nepal
• ²Assistant Professor, Institute of Forestry Hetauda, Tribhuvan University, Nepal
• ³Assistant Professor, Faculty of Forestry, Agriculture and Forestry University, Nepal
• ⁴Professor, Faculty of Forestry, Agriculture and Forestry University, Nepal

Received: April 4, 2021   Published: April 30, 2021

Corresponding author:Yogendra Yadav, Institute of Forestry Hetauda, Tribhuvan University, Nepal

DOI: 10.32474/OAJESS.2021.06.000231

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Abstract

Trees outside forests (TOFs) are important natural resources that contribute substantially to national biomass and carbon stocks in many regions of the world. This paper assesses and quantify the status of distribution, tree diversity, carbon estimation in TOFs of Parwanipur rural municipality. The data was collected by stratified random sampling with sampling intensity 0.45% and strata was laid randomly in accordance with the TOFs present in the area with circular plot of radius 17.84m. Firstly, tree measurement was done of Gbh>15cm and then soil samples were collected from each sample plot of depth 0-10cm, 10-20cm and 20-30cm, respectively. The higher distribution of carbon biomass is found in Eucalyptus camaldulensis(97.39tha-1), lowest in Azadirachta indica (0.36tha-1) within TOF. According to land use, TOFs in agriculture and urban has occupied 89.37ha and 198.83ha, respectively. The total average carbon stock of TOFs was found to be higher in urban (70.21 tha-1) than that in agricultural land use (84.31tha-1). A decreasing trend in soil organic carbon was seen for both the land uses with increase in soil depths, but on contrary, an increasing trend was observed in terms of bulk density with increase in soil depths. The total SOC stock within TOF present in urban and agriculture followed the order as Urban>Agriculture with the total SOC stock of each land use being 39.22t ha-1and 36.17 t ha-1respectively. A linear relationship was found between SOC stock and organic carbon percentage for both the types of land use where TOF is present but in terms of bulk density and total SOC content no linear relationship was found. Shannon-Weiner and Simpson biodiversity index of TOFs was found higher in urban (H=1.91, D=0.83) than that in agriculture land use (H=1.44, D= 0.68) respectively. ANOVA test (P=0.05) shows that means stocks of soil organic carbon do differ significantly at soil depths 0-10, 10-20 and 20-30 cm respectively in TOFs in Urban. The results, thus, indicate that TOFs in urban land have greater distribution in terms of area occupied, average carbon stock, and tree species diversity than that of TOFs in agricultural land so proper agro-forestry scheme should be promoted in study area to improve those all-in agricultural land too.

Keywords: Biomass; Growing stock; Soil carbon; Tree outside forest; Tree diversity

Abstract| Introduction| Materials and methods| Results| Discussion| Conclusion| Acknowledgments| References|