Study on CO₂ and CH₄ emissions from the soils of various land use systems in temperate mountainous ecosystem of part of Nilgiris, Western Ghats, India

High altitude ecosystems are highly vulnerable and are generally subjected to rapid changes of climate especially due to change in land use practices and deforestation. It affects the emission level of Green House Gases (GHGs) particularly carbon dioxides (CO2). Forest soil possess huge quantity of mineralizable soil organic carbon (SOC), with high microbial communities and soil respiration. However frequent land use change strongly influences the quality and quantity of SOC, since it is largely governed by the microbial population and soil respiration. Therefore, the present study is taken up to find out CO2 and CH4 emissions from the soils of forest, grassland, tea plantations and agricultural land. We found that the soils of grassland emits maximum amount of greenhouse gases and the soils of the agricultural land, emits minimum amount of GHG's. However, the grassland and forest soils along with the vegetation cover behave as a sink to the atmospheric CO2. We conclude that the protection of forests and grasslands is essential to prevent top soil erosion, sustenance in soil quality and for amelioration of global warming effects.