COS 106-4 - Bamboo: A key taxon for mitigating global climate change

Background/Question/Methods

Recent reports on rapid changes in global climate scenarios revealed devastation in the atmosphere and both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems which threatened all sort of life forms on the planet Earth. In this context, a detailed study was conducted in tropical, sub-tropical and temperate biome of Eastern Himalayas and Indo-Burma Biodiversity hotspot of India with special reference to bamboo forests. Our study focuses on standing biomass, carbon sequestration and carbon pool in natural bamboo forests, which was carried out based on harvest method followed by incorporation of remote sensing and GIS platform for accounting total carbon pool & carbon sequestration rate in respective forest types.

Results/Conclusions

This study revealed that most of the tropical, sub-tropical and temperate bamboo species are much more efficient in carbon sequestration, biomass accumulation and maintaining soil carbon pool to that of fast-growing tree species such as Popular deltoides, Eucalyptus tereticornis, Pinus kesiya, etc. Our finding provides scope to adopt bamboo as a key taxon for mitigating elevated atmospheric carbon with its rapid annual carbon trapping capability worth 25-35 Gg/ha in tropical biome, 15-20 Gg/ha in sub-tropical biome and 8-12 Gg/ha in temperate & alpine biome. Our finding also evident that bamboo forests are highly significant in carbon sequestration to that of tree dominated forests including rain forests in Europe, America, Africa and Asia pacific regions, where maximum annual carbon sequestration was reported to the tune of only 8-20 Gg/ha.