Assessing soil organic carbon and its relation with biophysical and ecological parameters in Tropical Reserve Forest Ecosystem, India

Organic matter in soil is an essential parameter for assessing the various agrodynamic properties of soils. The paper makes an attempt to assess the level of soil organic carbon (SOC) and analyze its relationship with biophysical parameters in Sariska Tiger Reserve (STR), India. SOC was predicted from normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) pixel values of Sentinel 2A data. Two ecological parameters namely NDVI and bare soil index (BSI) and one biophysical parameter namely soil pH were executed to determine their relationship with SOC. A total of 30 samples were collected through stratified random sampling. Regression analysis was performed between estimated and predicted SOC. Findings of this study can effectually be utilized for conservation and management of Sariska Tiger Reserve. The methodology will retrofit better policy implementation for maintaining the health of forest species in STR and can be applied on other Reserve forest of socio-ecological significance.