Influence of Irrigation on Soil Carbon Fluxes for a Semi-arid Agro-ecosystem of India

Abstract: With the increasing population of India, not only is there a growing stress on the water resources of the country but also there is a need to increase the crop yield throughout the nation. Due to these reasons, there is a pressing need to switch to water-saving irrigation practices in the water-stressed climates of semi-arid dryland ecosystems of India. The transformation from flood irrigation to drip and sprinkler irrigation is one such method by which the water- use efficiency of irrigation systems has increased. Also, to cater to the needs of increasing population, there is a requirement to increase the crop yield by either intensifying irrigation or switching to high yielding varieties of crops. These transformations are expected to play a huge part in change in carbon fluxes from soils of these regions. Soil is the largest terrestrial carbon sink and plays an important role in carbon sequestration. Crop production through irrigation and fertilization results in the greenhouse gas emission from the soil to atmosphere. It is expected that a drip or sprinkler irrigation system would have a greater carbon footprint than a conventional flood irrigation system. This is partially attributed to the carbon emission during their manufacturing and partially to the heterogeneous and under saturated state of soil. There is a definite gap in understanding the soil carbon fluxes from the irrigation fields of semi-arid ecosystems in India. In this seminar, I wish to discuss a few methods by which the soil carbon fluxes from a heterogeneous agro-ecosystem of India present in the semi-arid climate can be addressed.

Date/Time
Date(s) - 31/07/2019
12:00 am - 4:00 pm