The Critical Role Played by Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) in Terrestrial Ecosystem

Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays a critical role in terrestrial ecosystem functioning as the dominant energy source for microorganisms and as a fundamental control on soil structure and ecosystem productivity. It plays an important role in plant nutrition, roots, and overall plant development. Promotes active and diverse soil biology. Reactivates and sustains naturally occurring biological cycles. Increases soil exchange capacity. The present study work has been conducted for India. The study is purely GIS and Remote Sensing based, using imagery provided by EnvirometriX Ltd. The imagery contains the data from 1950 to 2018. Initially the imagery has been processed in Google Earth Engine and final image downloaded for the study area in tif form, further with the help of GIS the pixel value extracted. It is found that the average soil organic carbon (SOC) content in India is around 0.54%. However, the SOC content in India has decreased from 1% to 0.3% over the past 70 years. which is undoubtly on lower side and a matter of serious concern.