Soil Carbon Storage in Forest and Agriculture Land Use in the Tanralili Watershed

Abstract

Soil is a long-term store of carbon in terrestrial ecosystems and plays an important role in the global carbon cycle. Sequestration of soil organic carbon is considered as one of the climate change mitigation strategies and is related to carbon storage in the soil. This study aims to determine soil carbon storage based on land use in forest areas and dry land agriculture in the Tanralili watershed.Soil samples were taken at a depth of 0-10 cm, 10-20 cm, and 20-30 cm, repeated three times in succession purposive sampling on the use of forest land and dry land agriculture. Soil chemical properties observed are bulk density, soil organic carbon, nitrogen, and C:N ratio. Research results show that soil carbon storage is higher in forest land use compared to dry land farming. Forest land with mixed tree crop species had the highest carbon store, namely 96 tons/ha, while dry land with horticultural crop types rotated with various crops had the lowest carbon store, namely 43 tons/ha. Soil carbon accumulation is most abundant in the topsoil layer of 0-10 cm. The availability of soil organic carbon can be seen from the C:N ratio, increasing C:N will reduce the ability to absorb soil carbon.