Carbon stock assessment and prediction in the Periyar Tiger Reserve, India, using markov chain and invest model

Enhancing and conserving carbon pools in vegetation is a major strategy for mitigating climate change. Carbon dynamics in terrestrial ecosystems are influenced by processes such as photosynthesis, respiration, decomposition, and combustion, as well as anthropogenic activities such as greenhouse gas emissions and climatic variations in rainfall and temperature, and it is stored as biomass in various forms carbon sequestration is evaluated in this study based on the change in total carbon in two different scenarios using the Markov chain and the InVEST model for the years 2001, 2022, and 2043 . The 1.625 Tg carbon has already been lost from 2001 to 2022 in the forest area of Periyar Tiger Reserve and another 0.415 Tg of carbon is expected to be lost in the predicted future, when we compare the forest cover in 2043 to the current scenario. The lower carbon release in 2022 compared to 2001 is due to natural disasters such as the 2018 major flood in the Idukki District. The research findings assist policymakers in simulating ecosystem carbon storage and its trade-offs for a variety of environmental and economic objectives.