Impact of forest floor fire on soil carbon sequestration of Pinus roxburghii forest in Langtang National Park, Nepal
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3126/jnhm.v30i0.27550Keywords:
soil organic carbon, carbon stock, CO2 flux, CO2 mitigate, fire intensity, soil charcoal stockAbstract
Forest floor fires are known to be significantly important in carbon sequestration in soil. The present study investigated the total soil carbon stock (charcoal+soil organic carbon) andCO2 flux from four different depths (0-2, 2-10, 10-30 and >30cm) in fired and unfired forest of P. roxburghii from Langtang National Park, Nepal. The aim of this study was to test the impact of forest floor fire on soil carbon sequestration. We measured total carbon stock in soil of unfired and fired sites of different intensities namely: high frequency and high intensity, high frequency and moderate intensity and high frequency and low intensity. There was significant difference (P=0.00) of the soil organic carbon between the sites and different soil depths tested by one-way ANOVA. Similarly, one-way ANOVA test showed that soil charcoal stock was significantly different (P=0.00) at different soil depths. The value of CO2 flux was increased with increasing volumetric water content and decreasing soil temperature. One-way ANOVA showed significant difference (P=0.00) of volumetric water content, soil temperature and CO2 flux between the sites. In high frequency and medium intensity site, high amount of carbon sequestrated in soil suggested that fire of medium intensity mitigates high CO2 from the atmosphere.
Downloads
References
ANSLEY, R J; BOUTTON, T W; SKJEMSTAD, J O (2006) Soil organic carbon and black carbon storage and dynamics under different fire regimes in temperate mixed-grass savanna. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 20:1–11.
ARMOUR, C D; BUNTING, S C; NEUENSCHWANDER, L F (1984) Fire intensity effects on the understory in Ponderosa Pine forest. Journal of Range Management 37:44–49.
AWASTHI, K D; SINGH, B R; SITAULA, B K (2005) Profile carbon and nutrient levels and management effect on soil quality indicators in the Mardi watershed of Nepal. Acta agriculture Scandinavia Section B-soil and plant 55:192–204.
BAJRACHARYA, R M; LAL, R; KIMLE, J M (1998) Soil process and the carbon cycle: long term tillage effect on soil organic carbon distribution in aggregates and primary particles fractions of two ohio soils. In LAL, R; KIMBLE, J M; FOLLETT, R F; STEWART, B A (eds) Soil process and the carbon cycle. CRCPress, Boca, Raton, FL, USA; pp 353–368.
BERG, E E; ANDERSON, R S (2006) Fire history of white and Lutzspruce forests on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, over the last two millennia as determined from soil charcoal. Forest ecology and management 227: 275–283.
BHATTARAI, T P; SKUTSCH, M; MIDMORE, D J; RANA, E B (2012) The carbon sequestration potential of community-based forest management in Nepal. International Journal of climate change 3: 233–251.
BLAKE, G R; HARTGE, K H (1986) Bulk density. In KLUTE, A (ed) Methods of soil analysis, Part 1. Agron. Monogr. 9. ASA and SSSA, Madison, WI; pp 363–375 (2nd ed).
BURKE, R A; ZEPP, R G; TARR, M A; MILLER, W L; STOCKS, B J (1997) Effect of fire on soil–atmosphere exchange of methane and carbon dioxide in Canadian boreal forest sites. Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres 102: 29289–29300.
DE MARCO, A; GENTILE, A E; ARENA, C; DE SANTO, A (2004) Nutrient content and biological activity in burned and unburned soils of a Mediterrabean maquis area of southern Italy. Geophys Eur Geosci Un Res Abstr 6: 06999.
DRUFFEL, E R M (2004) Comments on the importance of black carbon in the global carbon cycle. Marine Chemistry 92:197–200.
FEARNSIDE, P M; GRACA, P M L A; RODRIGUES, F J A (2001) Burning of Amazonian rainforest: burning efficiency and charcoal formation in forest cleared for cattle pasture near Manaus, Brazil. Forest Ecology and Management 146:115–128.
FIRE SCIENCE BRIEF (2009) Low-intensity fire in eastern white pine. A supporting role in understory diversity. 52: (www.firescience.gov).
FOEREID, B; LEHMANN, J; MAJOR, J (2011) Modeling black carbon degradation and movement in soil. Plant and Soil 345:223–236.
FORBES, M S; RAISON, R J; SKJEMSTAD, J O (2006) Formation, transformation and transport of black carbon (charcoal) in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Science of the Total Environment 370:190–206.
HART, J L; HORN, S P; GRISSINO-MAYER, H D (2008) Fire history from soil charcoal in a mixed hardwood forest on the Cumberland Plateau. Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society 135: 401–410.
HORN, S P; UNDERWOOD, C A (2014) Methods for the study of soil charcoal as an indicator of fire and forest history in the Appalachian region. In WALDROP, T A (ed) Proceedings of wildland fire in the Appalachians; discussions among managers and scientists. Gen.Tech.Rep.SRS–199. US Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station, Asheville, NC, USA; pp 104–110.
HORN, S P; ORVIS, K H; KENNEDY, L M; CLARK, GM (2000) Prehistoric fires in the highlands of the Dominican Republic: evidence from charcoal in soils and sediments. Caribbean Journal of Science 36:10–18.
HOUGHTON, K A; WOODWELL, G M (1989) Global climate change. Scientific American 260:36–44.
IGLESIAS, M T (2010) Effects of fire frequency on nutrient levels in soils of Aleppo pine forest in southern France. Lazaroa 31:147–152.
JAMES, E L; LEON, K B; .NEUENSCHWANDER, F (1985) Role of fire in Lodgepole pine forests. In BAUMGARTNER, D M; KREBILL, R G; ARNOTT, J T; WEETMAN, G F (eds) Lodgepole pine the species and its management symposium proceedings. Washington State University, Pullman, USA; pp 133–152.
KARA, O; BOLAT, I (2009) Short-term effects of wildfire on microbial biomass and abundance in black pine plantation soils in Turkey. Ecological Indicators 9:1151–1155.
KIRSHBAUM, M U F (2000) Will changes in soils organic carbon act as a positive or negative feedback on global warming? Biogeochemistry 48:21–51.
KUHLBUSCH, T; CRUTZEN, P J (1995) Toward a global estimate of black carbon in residues of vegetation fires representing a sink of atmospheric CO2 and a source of O2. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 9:491–501.
KUMAR, M (2015) Carbon stock in standing dead trees of Pinus roxburghii Sarg. in sub-tropical part of Garhwal Himalaya. Forestry Ideas 21:75–83.
KUMAR, M; SHEIKH, M.A; BHAT, J.A; BUSSMANN, R W (2013) Effect of fire on soil nutrients and under story vegetation in Chir pine forest in Garhwal Himalaya, India. Acta Ecologica Sinica 33:59–63.
LAL, R; KIMBLE, J M; FOLLETT, R F; COLE, C V (1998) The potential of US cropland to sequester carbon and mitigate the greenhouse effect. Sleeping Bear Press, Chelsea, Michigan, USA; 128 p.
LAL, R; KIMBLE, J M (1997) Conservation tillage for carbon sequestration. Nutrient Cycling in Agro ecosystems 49:243–253.
LAL, R J; KIMBLE, M; STEWART, B A (1995) World soils as a source or sink for relatively active gases. In LAL, R; KIMBLE, J; LEVINE, E; STEWART, B A (eds) Soil management and greenhouse effect. Lewis Publisher, Boca Raton, Florida, USA; pp 1–8.
LEAGUE, B L; HORN, S P (2000) A 10,000 year record of páramo fires in Costa Rica. Journal of Tropical Ecology 16: 747–752.
LEIFELD, J; BASSIN, S; FUHRER, J (2004) Carbon stock in Swiss agriculture soils predicted by land use soil characteristics, and altitude. Agriculture, Ecosystem and Environment 105: 255–266.
LICATA, C; SANFORD, R (2012) Charcoal and total carbon in soils from foothills shrublands to subalpine forests in the Colorado front range. Forests 3:944–958.
MARLAND, G; ROTTY, R M (1984) Carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels: a procedure for estimation and results for 1950-1982. Tellus 36:232–261.
MORISADA, K; ONO, K; KANOMATA, H (2004) Organic carbon stock in forest soils in Japan. Geoderma 119: 21–32.
PARDINI, G; GISPERT, M; DUNJΌ, G (2004) Relative influence of wildfire on soil properties and erosion processes in different Mediterranean environments in NE Spain. Science of the Total Environment 328:237–246.
PATTERSON, W A; EDWARDS, K J; MAGUIRE, D J (1987) Microscopic charcoal as an indicator of fire. Quaternary Science Review 6:3–23.
PAUDYAL, D (2008) Sustainable resin tapping in Nepal: challenges and opportunities (a case from Salyan districs). The initiation 2:172–179.
PEARSON, T R H; BROWN, S; RAVINDRANATH, N H (2005) Integrating carbon benefit estimates into GEF projects. Capacity Development and Adaptation Group Guidelines. United Nations Development Programme, Global Environment Facility, Bureau of Development Policy, New York, USA.
RAICH, J W; SCHLESINGER, W H (1992) The global Carbon dioxide flux in soil respiration and its relationship to vegetation and climate. Tellus 44B:81–99.
RASSE, D P; MULDER, J; MONI, C; CHENU, C (2006) Carbon turnover kinetics with depth in a French loamy soil. Soil Science Society of American Journal 70:2097–2105.
SANFORD Jr, R L; Horn, S P (2000) Holocene rain-forest wilderness: a neotropical perspective on humans as an exotic, invasive species. In COLE, D N; MCCOOL, S F; BORRIE, W T; O’LOUGHLIN; COMPS, J (eds) Proceedings of wilderness science in a time of change, Vol. 3. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Ogden, Utah, USA; pp 68–173.
SCHMIDT, M W I (2004) Carbon budget in the black. Nature 427: 305–306.
SEILER, W; CRUTZEN, P J (1980) Estimates of gross and net fluxes of carbon between the biosphere and the atmosphere from biomass burning. Climatic Change 2:207–247.
SEMWAL, R L; MEHTA, J P (1996) Ecology of forest fires in Chir Pine (Pinus roxburghii Sarg.) forests of Garhwal Himalaya. Current Science 70:426–427.
SITLHOU, A; SINGH, T B (2014) Post-fire nutrient availability in the sub- tropical forest ecosystem of the Koubru Hills, Manipur, India. F1000 Research 3(30): 1–19.
SMITH, P; POWLSON, D S; SMITH, J U; FALLOON, P; COLEMAN, K (2000) Climate change commitments: quantitative estimates of the potentials for carbon mitigation by agriculture. Global Climate Change 6:525–539.
SUMAN, D O (1984) The production and transport of charcoal formed during agricultural burning in central Panama. Interciencia 9:311–313.
TURCIOS, M M; JARAMILLO, M M A; DOVALEJR, J; FEARNSIDE, P M; BARBOSA, R I (2016) Soil charcoal as long-term pyrogenic carbon storage in Amazonian seasonal forests. Global change Biology 22:190–197.
ULERY, A L; GRAHAM, R C; CHADWICK, O A; WOOD, H B (1995) Decade scales changes of soil carbon, nitrogen exchangeable cations under chaparral and pine. Geoderma 65:121-134.
WHITLOCK, C; LARSEN, C (2001) Charcoal as a fire proxy. In SMOL, J P; BIRKS, H J B; LAST, W M (eds) Tracking environmental change using lake sediments: terrestrial, algal, and siliceous indicators, Volume 3. Kluwer Academic Press, Dordrecht, The Netherlands; pp 75–97.
ZHAO, H; TONG, D Q; LIN, Q; WANG, G (2012) Effect of fires on soil organic carbon pool and mineralization in a northeastern China wetland. Geoderma 189–190:532–539.
