Plantation on Indian National Highways is just not enough: IIFM

BHOPAL: Carbon emitted by heavy duty road transport is a major problem for commuters themselves and the people dwelling nearby Highways, also adding to the air pollution. One may be thinking that plantation along is just enough but its not.  National highways of India, spread across 1,00,089 kilometers of the country have potential of about 7.33 million tonnes of carbon sequestration but in

reality, there is only 2.13 to 2.46 million tonnes of carbon is being sequestered, says a study by students of Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, Amit Shinge and Prabhakar Panda. Adding on the study recommended that the existing guidelines of National Green Highways mission to be used extensively and the 90% vegetation cover needs to be achieved for this. Of 1,00,089 kilometers, Madhya Pradesh contributes about 5193.57 kilometers of National highways.

The study, which was actually a "baseline study for assessment of carbon sequestration potential of existing grassland and woody vegetation along national highways of India", and conducted in collaboration with National Highways authority of India. The idea was to give an estimate to NGHM, that how much green cover need to be increased so that they can take remedial measures for improving carbon sequestration capability of national Highways, told Amit Shinge, final year student of Post-graduation diploma in Forestry management.

It is to be mentioned that of 142.04 million tonnes of carbon emitted by transport sector, 87% is estimated to be relased from road transport alone according to 2010 MOef data. Thus the National Green Highways mission was launched to in July 2016, to give green canopied highways to the commuters. Along with the view, the idea was also to sequester the carbon released on them.

Detailing about the study, Panda who is also a final year student said, "The methodology for the study involved field visits to ten NH stretches in four agro climatic zones - Trans-Gangetic Plain Region, Eastern Himalaya Region, Southern Plateau and Hills Region and West Coast Plain and Ghat Region, for collection of primary data with respect to existing plantations, as well as, analysis of secondary data obtained from various ROs, PIUs and concessionaires. The analysis concentrated mainly on three carbon pools - Above Ground Biomass (AGB), Below Ground Biomass (BGB) and, Soil Organic Carbon (SOC)."

The study of these four agro climatic zones with about 31000 kilometers of NHs and then extrapolated suggested that this amount to only 2.13 to 2.46 million tons of carbon sequestration in present date. The other parts of study by 6 students, including two mentioned above, also included developing database native trees and species of different agroclimatic zones of India for plantation across Highways; global best practices for developing road side vegetation and developing framwork for people's participation in same.

Recommentations in Study:

Include Use of GIS to identify and demarcate the project boundaries, statistical estimation of a number of sample plots to be laid out and cross-verification with high resolution satellite imagery from NRSA and "Trees Outside Forest" data from FSI, among others.

Recommendations to augment Carbon sequestration potential along NHs include mobilizing the ROs, PDs and field functionaries to enforce arboriculture /plantation clauses of existing NHAI contracts, regular workshops, comprehensively addressing the basic issues of land, water and protection.

The report concludes by drawing out scope for further research which includes use satellite remote sensing data, High-fidelity national carbon mapping, leveraging global carbon-funding arrangements, crowd-sourcing/funding and bio-sequestration using C4 plants, among others.

What is National green highway mission:

The National Green Highways Mission got underway this year, with Union road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari kick-starting the initial plantation drive along 1,500km of national highways at a cost of about Rs.300 crore. The mission aims to provide a green canopy along 100,000km of highways and create jobs for 1 million youth.The government plans to spend an estimated Rs.5,000 crore, which is 1% of the road construction cost of Rs 5 trillion till 2019, on the mission and link it with the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) to boost the rural economy. Government also aims bigger philantrophic and incdustrial groups to chip in to help increase the green cover along Highways.

Suggested species:

Trees high on all parameters and are perfect to give an international look to Indian National highways include Neem, the basic air purifier named in Indian tradition, jack fruit, Bougainvellia, Brownea, Pipli, bottle Brush, calliandra, Gold mohur, Duranta, Ficus, Anjan and talura etc, told Shweta Singh, a final year student of IIFM who documented 475 species based on major parameters like its utility for people around, evergreen, flowering, crown shaped to give canopies and growth rate. Euclyptus which consumes a lot of groundwater was suggested to be excluded from the list.

Besides helping to reduce vehicular pollution, the Mission strives to help the local communities. Public participation was one of the part, where Ruchi Karkare and Shraddha Agrawal, final year students of IIFM conducted the field study with the farmers of Pelak village of Palwal district, to know about what actually the people living around the National Highways want after their studying their much appreciated model along national highway.

National Green Highways mission which aims for plantation and maintenance of green buffer zone along highways. As sustainability is one of its parameter to make the initiative successful, which can be strengthened with peoples' participation only.

The major requirements by people were, ecological, Economic and aesthetic value to have a farmers' friendly model. Our recommendations on basis of study includes CSR participation, implementation of alley farming which means apart from crop trees can be grown in alleys, by dividing the farms and establishment of nurseries for easy availability of saplings. "The farmers were more interested in having the species which can also benefit them, like fruit bearing trees and those which do not consume a lots of ground water. They also insisted upon species which can grow to full height within 3-4 years," told Ruchi Karkare to TOI.