India’s green cover absorbs more carbon than it emits annually, says study

Mumbai: Research from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal has found that India’s green cover absorbed more carbon than it emitted annually over the past decade, though this absorption rate decreased during extreme climate events like droughts.

The study examined the net ecosystem exchange (NEE), which measures the

balance between carbon dioxide absorption through photosynthesis and its release through respiration.

According to Dr Dhanyalekshmi Pillai, associate professor and head of the Max Planck Partner Group Germany at IISER Bhopal, India’s ecosystems demonstrated annual NEE estimates between 380 and 530 million tonnes of carbon per year. The research identified varying carbon absorption patterns across different vegetation types. While evergreen forests showed high efficiency in CO2 capture, deciduous forests in central India released approximately 210 million tonnes of carbon annually. Croplands, despite lower per-unit-area absorption rates compared to forests, contributed significantly to CO2 removal due to their extensive coverage. The study utilised an innovative approach combining plant fluorescence observations and physics-based computer models. This method incorporated data from multiple satellite instruments, including the TROPOMI instrument aboard the Sentinel-2 satellite, and analysed thousands of observational records from 2012-2022.