EVALUATING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN CHAR LAND AGROFORESTRY SYSTEMS

Abstract

Agroforestry systems are believed to offer numerous ecosystem services. Especially in the case of char land agroforestry practices, this is almost absent. Therefore, this research investigated the outcome of four key ecosystem services and environmental advantages of seven char land agroforestry systems (Malta, Mango B, Litchi, Mahogony, Guava, Lombu, and Mango H) as a prologue to the special issues like carbon sequestration, carbon: nitrogen (C: N) ratio, soil nutrient contents, and local field level biodiversity changes. This research has found a significant variation in soil chemical properties by practicing agroforestry. The only decrease in soil properties was found in soil pH and the maximum variation (11.30%) of this parameter occurred in the Lombu-based multistoried agroforestry field. However, overall effective increases were noticed in all other chemical properties of soil. Consequently, Mango (Var. Hariavanga) based agroforestry field gave maximum increase of soil organic carbon, available Potassium, available Phosphorus, available Sulphur, and available Zinc (131.91, 62.50, 73.06, 98.46, 72.58, % respectively). On the other hand, available nitrogen was increased maximum in both varieties (Hariavanga and BARI Am 4) of the Mango field which was 100%. Again, the maximum (15.28%) magnesium was increased in Guava, and the C: N ratio (31.26%) was in Litchi Litchi-based agroforestry field. In the case of soil biological properties, all the parameters were also increased from the initial open field conditions. Maximum increase of soil bacteria, P2 solubilizing bacteria, and fungus were found in the Litchi-based agroforestry system (759.24, 124.38, and 98.48 %, respectively). In the case of N2 fixing bacteria, BARI Am 4 Mango field gave a 100.69 % increase value. For Actinomycetes, a 908% increase was found in the Guava-based agroforestry field. In the context of local field-level biodiversity, the population of flora and fauna has doubled within five years in the Mango-based agroforestry field. This increase, i.e. improvement trend, has been observed in the Mahogany Litchi, Guava, and Lombu-based agroforestry also. Finally, it may be concluded that due to practicing different fruits and forests-based agroforestry systems in char land, a significant amount of four ecosystem services were increased.