STUDIES ON TREE BIOMASS FOR ASSESSING CARBON DENSITY IN TROPICAL FOREST ECOSYSTEM OF CENTRAL INDIA

The studies on tree biomass for assessing carbon density in tropical forest ecosystem of central India was undertaken during 2009-11 in forest area of eight districts [Jabalpur, Seoni, Balaghat, Narsinghpur, Mandla, Dindori, Shahdol and Umaria] at 30 adopted representative sites at varying latitudes and longitudes. The annual rainfall of their study area was 1000-1600 mm. The soils of the study sites were alluvial, light to medium black as well as red and yellow with pH value ranging from 5.5 to 80. The study was confined in three vegetation type viz., teak mixed, salmixed and mixed forest. In the study new approach was adopted by using ground data as well remote sensing data to get an accurate estimate of vegetation carbon pool in the region. Among the 30 selected site ID, Tectona grandis was dominated at 10 side. The basal area and volume of tree species in forest study sites ranged between 0.8 to 169.68 m²/ha and 0.11 to 2, 31299.82 m³/ha. The maximum tree biomass/ha recorded for Shorea roubsta (203.54 t/ha). The carbon density was ranged between 3.0 to 33.21 t/ha in mixed forest, 5.17 to 67.78 t/ha in teak forest and 36.10 to 102.39 t/ha in sal forest. From the investigation it can be stated that national coverage for tropical forest will improve, if successive survey of forest carbon sequestration are conducted in future to assess carbon stocks for mitigating the ill effect of climate change.