ANNOUNCEMENTS
According to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, 2022, the world has witnessed an increase in the net anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in 2019, about 12% higher than in 2010 and 54% higher than in 1990. Carbon dioxide is a key greenhouse gas contributing to global warming and climate change. Therefore, it is extremely important to maintain the crucial balance between carbon sources and sinks for mitigation of climate change. Forest ecosystem performs a crucial part in the carbon cycle as they utilize the process of photosynthesis for transforming the carbon present in the atmosphere into biomass that is stored within trees. The Aravalli Biodiversity Park (ABP) in Gurugram district of Haryana, India, is an ‘Urban Forest’ consisting of the native floral species of the Aravalli hills (CERE, 2018). The aim of this study is to estimate the carbon sequestration and oxygen generation potential of the selected tree and grass species of ABP. This study utilizes CO2FIX, a modelling framework to quantify carbon stocks and fluxes in the forest ecosystem and grass sampling to quantify the grass biomass and carbon stock. This study demonstrates that Acacia nilotica has the highest carbon sequestration potential of 326.88 ton/ha, followed by Acacia catechu and Mitragyna parvifolia, with Acacia senegal having the least carbon sequestration potential. The stem compartment is observed to have the largest contribution in total carbon stock ranging from 53.31% in Kumath to 68.20 % in Palash. The least contribution in total carbon appears to be by the foliage compartment varying between 0.993% in Kumath to 1.99% in Babool. The results show that elephant grass has the highest potential to sequester carbon dioxide (77.07 ton/ha) and generate oxygen (56.07 ton/ha), followed by buffel grass. Spear grass can be observed to have the lowest potential of 48.66 ton/ha and 35.40 ton/ha to sequester carbon dioxide and generate oxygen respectively.
Keywords: carbon sequestration, oxygen generation, CO2Fix, carbon stock, climate change.
