Biomass Carbon and Tree Cover assessment in Agriculture Landscape

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Photo by bady abbas on Unsplash

Photo by bady abbas on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This paper assesses the remote sensing datasets of biomass carbon on the agricultural landscape and their decadal change dynamics due to variation in tree cover dominance using geospatial technology in India. Remote sensing data showed that in the year 2000, 16.9% of all agricultural land (28.02 million hectares) in India had agroforestry land (at least 10% tree cover) which was further increased to 22.5% (37.30 million hectares) over 10 years (up to the year 2010). The total biomass carbon estimate in the year 2000 was found 1868.75 million tons of carbon (≈1.87 Pg C) over the Indian agriculture landscape (≈166 million hectares). Out of which approximately 1039 million tons (≈1.04 Pg C) of biomass carbon come from trees (with 55.7% contribution). Total biomass carbon loss between the periods of 2000 and 2010 was observed 31.19 million tons, whereas gain was 170.02 million tons. The decadal biomass carbon net gain was 138.83 million tons due to an increase in agroforestry land by 5.6% (9.27 million hectares). The mean biomass carbon in India increased from 11.29 to 12.13 t C ha−1 in 10 years, whereas the global mean increment is 20.4 to 21.4 t C ha−1 during the same base periods (Zomer et al in Sci Rep 6:29987, https://doi.org/10.1038/srep29987, 2016). Our analysis critically addressed one of the past research gaps of the biomass carbon-related findings in the agriculture landscape due to tree cover variation. Such understanding will assist significantly agroforestry decision-makers of India in enhancing future harmonized blueprint for agroforestry.