RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Biomass and carbon sequestration

Carbon is the key element of life in the biosphere. Vegetation and soil accumulate the carbon, while natural sources (volcanoes, etc.) or anthropogenic activities (thermal power generation, biomass burning, etc.) emit carbon. Emission and sequestration of carbon need to be in balance in the Earth system to maintain favorable environmental conditions for life. In this context, with the changes in the regional and global environmental conditions evident from consequences of climate changes, quantification of sources and sinks of carbon merits high importance. An attempt is made here to quantify the amount of carbon sequestered by SSF as compared to NSSF studied in the nine grids of Kathalekan.

The carbon sequestration by trees of SSF and NSSF (grid-wise) is given in Table 10, and Table 11. Above ground biomass (AGB) of SSF is significantly higher than NSSF (NSSF: AGB Mean ± SD; 263.32 ± 42.04 t/ha; carbon stored 131.66 ± 21.02 t/ha and for SSF: AGB 349.52 ± 110.79 t/ha; carbon stored 174.76 ± 55.39 t/ha; tAGB =2.14, p=0.035, tCS=2.14, p=0.035) and therefore higher ability to sequester carbon per unit area than the other forests within the grids. This is higher compared to earlier estimates of 65.4 t/ha (Ravindranath et al. 1997; Chhabra et al. 2002) and 67.4 t/ha (Haripriya 2000) for Indian tropical forests. Our finding that the tree covered SSF can accumulate significantly more biomass than the NSSF, and therefore sequester more carbon is a promising signal in the dismal scenario of global climatic change. The rich network of water courses of the Western Ghats has suffered severely due to deforestation and unregulated water use by humans. In our study area overuse of water by a couple of farmers poses threat to the future of swamps. It will be a good idea to reach the benefits of carbon credits to the millions of grass-root level farmers of the Western Ghats, whose services may be more fruitfully used in designing micro-level sustainable models of water use for agriculture and in restoring and safeguarding the pristine nature of water course forests.