Prospects of Biochar in Alkaline Soils to Mitigate Climate Change

Climate change is one of the most threatening issues persisting on the planet earth; challenging the existence of life due to greenhouse gases emission including atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Additionally, unpredicted shift in climatic indicators may hinder the sustainability of life. It is, thus, imperative to combat these harsh climatic variations by controlling emission of greenhouse gases especially carbon dioxide. Soils serve as source and sink for greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Therefore, the accurate quantification of storage and emission capacities are needed to obtain reliable global budgets that are necessary for land-use management, global change and for climate research. The inhabitants of the developing countries have suffered and will suffer greatly from the consequences of climatic uncertainty as the rain patterns will observe a huge shift that will encourage the floods and water scarcity. To cope with the challenges of climatic changes and emission of greenhouse gases, effective and practical techniques are required for the storage within the soil. An efficient and cost-effective method for this purpose could be the pyrolysis of biomass in the absence or limited oxygen and controlled conditions of temperature and pressure to a carbon-rich compound called as biochar since biochar has been characterized as a stable and long-lasting soil amendment possessing a wide potential of increasing agricultural production, carbon sequestration, and environmental quality. Researchers have been explored and investigated its applications mostly in acidic soils but data regarding its potential benefits in alkaline soils is lacking. This chapter will provide an insight into latest scientific research of biochar as a viable option for combating climate change hazardous in alkaline arid soils. The characteristics of biochar responsible achieving these benefits will also be discussed. Additionally, modification techniques of biochar suiting alkaline soil will be the part of this chapter since the use of biochar as soil amendment is normally not recommended for alkaline soils due to its alkaline nature. However, as a cost-effective soil amendment, especially for climate change mitigation, needs detailed discussion to highlight all aspects of biochar could be exploited for alkaline soils being a carbon-rich product has potential to improve total organic carbon in soil along with its other agronomic uses for soil improvement in terms of soil CEC, pH, bulk density, water and nutrient holding capacity, microbial activity enhancer, remediation of polluted and degraded soil besides its carbon sequestration potential for mitigation of climate change.