[01] Mansur Abdul Mohammed, Department of Geography, Faculty of Earth and Environmental Science, Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria.

This study has investigated the organic carbon content in two land use types in view of the increasing attention being paid to the sensitivity of organic carbon to global change drivers because of its importance in the global carbon cycle. The data for the study was derived from the analysis of twenty soil samples collected using composite sampling method. The samples were collected from two different land use types, forestland and cropland. Two sites of each land use type were used. Five samples were collected from each of the two land use types (Forestland and Cropland) from the two study areas that were purposively selected, Goda and Yanbawa. The samples were collected within 0 – 20 cm depth because it is the zone of maximum biological and chemical activities in soil. The organic carbon was analysed by Walkley-Black method and pH using pH meters. The result shows that the two forestland, Goda and Yanbawa recorded higher mean organic carbon of 1.09 and 0.89 C/100g soil and pH 6.8 and 6.5 respectively than their cropland site Goda and Yanbawa with 0.13 and 0.4 C/100g soil and pH 5.2 and 5.6 respectively. This shows that there is variation in soil organic carbon from forestland and cropland, this is probably attributable to the fact that forestland receives high amount of plant litters and other biomass from the forest communities thereby influencing the rate of soil respiration in that ecosystem and influencing other factors that control the amount and the rate of soil respiration such as temperature, moisture, nutrient content and level of oxygen in the soil. The percentage organic carbon in forestland is significantly different from that of cropland which indicated that forest communities have a great impact in the release of soil organic carbon to the atmosphere through soil respiration.

Organic Carbon, Soil, Atmosphere, Soil Respiration

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