Carbon Stock Estimation of Avicennia Marina (Forssk.) Forest Soil in Bushehr Province

 Mangrove forests play an important role in carbon stock, but the amount of carbon stocks in mangrove ecosystems and also different mangrove species are different. Unfortunately, these ecosystems are at dangerous and valuable area of them have been destroyed recently. Furthermore, no attempt was done to estimate mangrove soil carbon stock in our country. Then, the objective of this study was to estimate A. marina soil carbon stock and compare it with the other mangrove forest in the world and also with other forest ecosystems of the country.

30 soil samples were taken from the depth of 0-20 and 20-50 cm, in summer 2015. Then the carbon stock of each horizon was determined. Furthermore, correlation between soil carbon stock and soil physiochemical properties were determined.  

In the present study, the average carbon stocks in 0-20 and 20-50 cm depth were 13.6 and 26.2 tons per hectare respectively. This means the carbon stock in A. marina soil values is 8756 dollars per hectare. Pearson correlation results revealed that soil carbon stock was significantly correlated with total soil nitrogen and electrical conductivity. While, there were no significant correlations between carbon stocks with the rest of studied parameters.

Finally, we can’t ignore the A. marina had high potential in soil carbon reservation and it can be affected by soil nitrogen and electrical conductivity. Higher soil carbon stock in subsoil compared to the topsoil can be related to the higher soil nitrogen of the subsoil.