Water Air Soil Pollut (2022) 233: 228 Vol.: (0123456789) 1 3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-022-05689-4 Carbon Sequestration Potential of Agroforestry Systems and Its Potential in Climate Change Mitigation Bhoomika Ghale · Esha Mitra · Harsimran Singh Sodhi · Amit Kumar Verma  · Sandeep Kumar Received: 12 January 2022 / Accepted: 28 May 2022 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 soil enrichment through litter fall, above and below ground carbon sequestration, maintaining environ- mental services. Diferent agroforestry systems are adapted at the global level and periodic monitoring and estimation of area under agroforestry, monitor- ing of tree and soil carbon stocks is still a challeng- ing task due to the lack of uniform methodology. The review analyzes the potential of agroforestry systems for climate adaptation and mitigation as well as their implications for the livelihood of human well-being. Keywords Agroforestry · Air Pollution · Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) · Carbon stock · Green house gases (GHGs) · Soil carbon · Tree biomass 1 Introduction Agroforestry is the most conspicuous land-use system where woody vegetation and/or animal husbandry are deliberately integrated with agricultural activities on the same land units (Santiago-Freijanes et al., 2018). Intercropping of trees with crops increased farm income in many parts of the tropics and also provides fruits, fuel wood, fodder, and timber. Agroforestry is a tool to upgrade the farming system through diver- sifcation of agricultural practices, provide assets and income from wood energy and animal products and improve soil fertility, water, and air quality; it also enhances local climatic conditions, biodiversity, and ecosystem services and reduces soil erosion (Chavan Abstract Agroforestry, a sustainable land use practice adopted as a strategy under Kyoto Protocol, plays a crucial role to mitigate the inevitable climate change with a promising potential of carbon seques- tration in their biomass and utilization of their numer- ous resource. Agroforestry is crucial for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, sustaining livelihoods, and partial solutions for biodiversity conservation. World- wide, agroforestry is practiced by more than 1.2 bil- lion people, on around 1 billion hectares (ha) of land area, while in India, around 25.32 million hectares area comes under agroforestry. Agroforestry sys- tem is the enhancement of overall farm productivity, B. Ghale · E. Mitra · H. S. Sodhi · A. K. Verma (*) · S. Kumar  Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, Uttarakhand 248006, India e-mail: amitvermafri@gmail.com B. Ghale  e-mail: bhoomikaghale20@gmail.com E. Mitra  e-mail: mitraesha01@gmail.com H. S. Sodhi  e-mail: harsimransodhi94@gmail.com S. Kumar  e-mail: sandeepprabhakar1@gmail.com S. Kumar  College of Forestry, Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali Uttarakhand University of Horticulture and Forestry, Ranichauri, Uttarakhand 249199, India / Published online: 16 June 2022 Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.