Proceedings of the International Academy of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, 2018, 8(2): 139-150 IAEES www.iaees.org Article Assessment of biomass and carbon stock in temperate forests of Northern Kashmir Himalaya, India Davood A. Dar, Paulami Sahu School of Environment and Sustainable Development, Central University of Gujarat, Sector- 29 & 30, Gandhinagar, Gujarat- 382030, India E-mail: salfidvd96@gmail.com Received 7 February 2018; Accepted 15 March 2018; Published 1 June 2018 Abstract Accurate characterization and estimation of carbon stock in forest ecosystems of temperate region is important to illustrate their potential contribution to global carbon stocks. In the present study, we evaluated the biomass and carbon stock of Gulmarg forest range of northern Kashmir Himalaya, India. In this study, five forest types: Pinus wallichiana (PW), Abies pindrow (AP), Cedrus deodara (CD), Picea simithiana (PS) and Betula utilis (BU) were selected. The results have revealed that total tree biomass ranged from 319.2±208.5 Mg ha -1 in BU forest to 496.7±278.9 Mg ha- 1 for the CD forest. The results showed that total biomass carbon stock varies from 143.63±93.87 to 228.47±128 Mg C ha -1 across all forest types. The study reveals that the variation in the carbon stocks of different forest types is due to the presence of different composition of species, stand area, tree class size and altitude. This study indicates that the species, CD, present in Gulmarg Forest Range, is the most potent species to sequestrate carbon and hence this forest range plays a significant role in reducing carbon emissions from forest degradation and deforestation. It can be suggested that afforestation using CD species will be helpful in mitigating the impact of regional Climate Change. Keywords Kashmir Himalaya; biomass; carbon stock; broad leaf forest; climate change. 1 Introduction Global climate change is undoubtedly one of the major environmental issues at present and extensive international discussions and negotiations are going on worldwide to deal with this problem. Increasing concentration of various greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) levels in the atmosphere due to industries is widely recognized as the leading cause of the climate change in the world (IPCC, 2007; Zhang and Liu, 2012; Zhang and Liu, 2017). In addition, the anthropogenic activities such as forest degradation, deforestation, burning of fossil fuel and forest fire aggravate the global warming (Griffiths and Jarvis, 2004; Zhang and Zhang, 2012; Vashum et al., 2016). About 50% of total CO 2 emitted into the atmosphere remain Proceedings of the International Academy of Ecology and Environmental Sciences ISSN 22208860 URL: http://www.iaees.org/publications/journals/piaees/onlineversion.asp RSS: http://www.iaees.org/publications/journals/piaees/rss.xml Email: piaees@iaees.org EditorinChief: WenJun Zhang Publisher: International Academy of Ecology and Environmental Sciences