Impacts of land use on Indian mangrove forest carbon stocks: Implications for conservation and management

Globally, mangrove forests represents only 0.7% of world's tropical forested area but are highly threatened due to susceptibility to climate change, sea level rise, and increasing pressures from human population growth in coastal regions. Our study was carried out in the Bhitarkanika Conservati...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecological applications 2016-07, Vol.26 (5), p.1396-1408
Main Authors: Bhomia, R. K, R. A. MacKenzie, D. Murdiyarso, S. D. Sasmito, J. Purbopuspito
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agriculture
anthropogenic activities
aquaculture
Bhitarkanika Conservation Area, India
blue carbon
Carbon
carbon markets
carbon sinks
carbon stocks
Climate Change
climate change mitigation
coastal ecosystems
coasts
Conservation of Natural Resources
ecosystems
harvesting
Human Activities
human population
Humans
India
Indian mangroves
land use
mangrove forests
mangrove soils
people
planting
ponds
population growth
sea level
shrublands
Soil - chemistry
Wetlands
wildlife
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Globally, mangrove forests represents only 0.7% of world's tropical forested area but are highly threatened due to susceptibility to climate change, sea level rise, and increasing pressures from human population growth in coastal regions. Our study was carried out in the Bhitarkanika Conservation Area (BCA), the second‐largest mangrove area in eastern India. We assessed total ecosystem carbon (C) stocks at four land use types representing varying degree of disturbances. Ranked in order of increasing impacts, these sites included dense mangrove forests, scrub mangroves, restored/planted mangroves, and abandoned aquaculture ponds. These impacts include both natural and/or anthropogenic disturbances causing stress, degradation, and destruction of mangroves. Mean vegetation C stocks (including both above‐ and belowground pools; mean ± standard error) in aquaculture, planted, scrub, and dense mangroves were 0, 7 ± 4, 65 ± 11 and 100 ± 11 Mg C/ha, respectively. Average soil C pools for aquaculture, planted, scrub, and dense mangroves were 61 ± 8, 92 ± 20, 177 ± 14, and 134 ± 17 Mg C/ha, respectively. Mangrove soils constituted largest fraction of total ecosystem C stocks at all sampled sites (aquaculture [100%], planted [90%], scrub [72%], and dense mangrove [57%]). Within BCA, the four studied land use types covered an area of
ISSN:1051-0761
1939-5582
DOI:10.1890/15-2143