An Inventory on Black Carbon and Organic Carbon Emission by the Different Vegetative Ecosystem Over India

Abstract

Fires provoke land degradation, deforestation, imbalance in the ecosystem, and promote changes in land use. To add more vein aerosols such as Black Carbon (BC) and Organic Carbon (OC) were emitted during the combustion event which plays a major role in climate change, pollution, and health. Hence this study aims to estimate the emission, residence, dry deposition flux, and sequestering ability of deposited BC and OC from different vegetative fires across India using MODIS satellite data from 2013 to 2019. It was observed that the mean OC and BC emission were about 5.08 × 107 tonnes 4.48 × 106 tonnes during the fire season across India. On a national scale, cropland fires contributed the largest portion (80%) of total carbonaceous aerosol emissions from open fires. In co-emission of species, forest shares a maximum relationship (> 92 percent) among carbonaceous aerosols. Estimation of deposition flux of emitted species showed cropland has higher deposition rates with a residence period ranging between 7hours to 23days. From the observed results, it is evident that higher aerosol emission combined with negligible deposition will be a potential threat to the environment. Waste utilization promoting strategies has to be adopted in India since agriculture contributes to major aerosols emission.