The study was taken up in haliyal and Joida taluka of UK districts during the year 2012-2014. The study area lies between 140 55' N to 150 30' N Latitude and 740 15' E to 740 55' E Longitude. The IRS P6 LISS-III imageries were used for estimating the area under different land use land cover classes using ERDAS software with ground truth data collected from GPS. The land use land cover classes viz., Dense forest, , Horticulture plantation, Sparse forest, forest plantation, open land and Agriculture land were identified in supervised classification. According to the land use systems, soil samples at one meter depth were collected and soil organic carbon (SOC) was estimated. The result indicated that the SOC in soils of different land use classes are significantly different. The total and average SOC in Haliyal taluka was 11.257 million tonnes (in 81792 ha) and 123.55 t/ha respectively, similarly in Joida taluka was 20.69 million tone (in 177206 ha) and 83.59 t/ha, respectively. Among the different land use land cover classes, in haliyal taluka dense forest sequestered more SOC 184.08 t/ha, followed by horticulture plantaion (143.80 t/ha) where as in Joida taluka dense forest sequestered SOC of 120.36 t/ha followed by open land (73.80 t/ha). It is concluded that deciduous forest in Haliyal taluka sequestered more soil organic carbon compared to evergreen forest of Joida taluka due to more contribution from the leaf litter in deciduous forest hence forest types play an important role in sequestering atmospheric carbon in to the soil. Key words:Forest...
Authors: A.G. Koppad , B.S.Janagoudar , Rajakumar G.R..