AUTHOR=Padbhushan Rajeev , Kumar Upendra , Sharma Sheetal , Rana D. S. , Kumar Rajkishore , Kohli Anshuman , Kumari Priyanka , Parmar Brajendra , Kaviraj Megha , Sinha Abhas Kumar , Annapurna K. , Gupta Vadakattu V. S. R. 

TITLE=Impact of Land-Use Changes on Soil Properties and Carbon Pools in India: A Meta-analysis

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Environmental Science

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2021

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/environmental-science/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2021.794866

DOI=10.3389/fenvs.2021.794866

ISSN=2296-665X

ABSTRACT=Land-use changes (LUC), primarily due to deforestation and soil disturbance, are one of the major causes for soil quality degradation and greenhouse gas emissions. Effects of LUC on soil physico-chemical properties and changes in soil quality and land use management strategies that can effectively restore soil carbon and microbial biomass levels have been reported from all over the world but the impact analysis of such practices in the Indian context is limited. In this study, over 1786 paired datasets (for meta-analysis) on land uses (LUs) were collected from Indian literature (1990 to 2019) to determine the magnitude of the influence of LUC on soil carbon, microbial biomass, and other physical and chemical properties at three soil depths. Meta-analysis results showed that grassland (36.1%) lost the most soil organic carbon (SOC) compared to native forest land, followed by plantation (35.5%), cultivated (31.1%), barren (27.3%), and horticulture (11.5%). Our findings also revealed that, when compared to forest land, the microbial quotient was lower in other LUs. Due to the depletion of SOC stock, carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 eq) emissions were significantly higher in all LUs than in forest land. Results also showed that due to the conversion of forest land to cultivated land, total carbon, labile carbon, non-labile carbon, microbial biomass carbon, and SOC stocks were lost by 21%, 25%, 32%, 26%, and 41.2%, respectively. Changes in soil carbon pools and properties were more pronounced in surface (0-15 cm) soils than in subsurface soils (15-30 cm and 30-45 cm). Restoration of the SOC stocks from different LUs ranged from a minimum of 2% (grassland) to a maximum of 48% (plantation land). Overall, this study showed that soil carbon pools decreased as LUCs transitioned from native forestland to other LUs and it is suggested that by adopting crop-production systems that can reduce CO2 emissions from the intensive LUs such as the ones evaluated here could contribute to improvements in soil quality and mitigation of climate change impacts, particularly under Indian agro-climatic conditions.