Soil Carbon Sequestration for Soil Quality Improvement and Climate Change Mitigation

In twenty-first century, climate change is considered a serious issue for mankind. Producing sufficient food for the burgeoning population is also a great challenge. The accelerated increase in atmospheric CO2 level during the last decades aggravates the risks of global warming, soil degradation and desertification, and environmental pollution. Soil is the biggest terrestrial sink of carbon (C) and stores nearly 3 times of the atmospheric C pool and 4.5 times of the biotic C pool and thus maintains the global C cycle. Therefore, any change in the atmospheric C could be the result in modification of soil C. However, the C stabilization as well as subsequent sequestration in soil is greatly affected by different climatic and soil factors like land-use change, soil type, nature of organics present in soil, management practices, diversity of soil microorganism, rainfall, temperature, etc. The content and type of clay minerals affect the C stabilization by forming clayorganic complex in soil, whereas the recommended management practices such as conservation tillage, proper crop rotation, integrated use of inorganic and organic fertilizers, etc., play a vital role in sustaining soil quality and sequestering higher amounts of organic C in soil. Besides, land-use management has tremendous potential to sequester SOC and also reclamation of degraded salt-affected lands through suitable tolerant tree species may not only increase the area under forest but also subsequently fixes atmospheric CO2 into soil. The diversity and activity of soil microbes which affect the SOC sequestration by respiration and fixation mechanisms are very sensitive to change in soil temperature and moisture. The SOC also plays an incomparable role for sustaining soil quality which is very important for agricultural sustainability. Hence, sequestration of C in soil is very crucial to mitigate the effect of climate change by reducing the greenhouse gases emission and also to improve the soil quality for better crop productivity in sustainable manner.