Assessment of Biomass and Carbon Stock in Sal (Shorea robusta Gaertn.) Forests under Two Management Regimes in Tripura, Northeast India

We investigated tree composition, stand characteristics, biomass allocation pattern and carbon storage variability in Sal forests (Shorea robusta Garten.) under two forest management regimes (Sal forest and Sal plantation) in Tripura, Northeast India. The results revealed higher species richness (29 species), stand density of $1060.00{\pm}11.12stems\;ha^{-1}$ and diversity index ($1.90{\pm}0.08$) in Sal forest. and lower species richness (4 species), stand density of $ 230.00{\pm}37.22stems\;ha^{-1}$ and diversity index ($0.38{\pm}0.15$) in Sal plantation. The total basal cover $33.02{\pm}4.87m^2ha^{-1}$) and dominance ($0.76{\pm}0.08$) were found higher in Sal plantation than the Sal forest ($22.53{\pm}0.38m^2ha^{-1}$ and $0.23{\pm}0.02$ respectively). The total vegetation carbon density was recorded higher in Sal plantation ($219.68{\pm}19.65Mg\;ha^{-1}$) than the Sal forest ($167.64{\pm}16.73Mg\;ha^{-1}$). The carbon density estimates acquired in this study suggest that Sal plantation in Tripura has the potentiality to store a large amount of atmospheric carbon inspite of a very low species diversity. However, Sal forests has also an impending sink of carbon due to presence of large number of young trees.