Research Projects

The project will improve our understanding of how landscape evolution through permafrost thaw and glacier recession will impact the soil carbon fluxes in the glacierized catchment of the Himalayas, and what implications these processes have on global carbon cycling. The carbon fluxes will be traced from recently deglaciated permafrost soils (Upper Ganglass catchment Ladakh) to more developed Alpine meadows (Dingad watershed, Central Himalayas), across the seasons, as well as along elevational transects to capture the carbon fluxes in space and time. The CO2 and CH4 flux measurements will be carried out using the Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy (CRDS) technique. To understand the nature of carbon, we will use compound-specific δ13C and δD values of microbial lipid biomarkers, and 14C content of microbial fatty acids to determine modern vs. aged carbon flux. It is noteworthy to mention that this would be the first attempt to adequately quantify the concentration and sources of soil CO2 from Himalayan soils using state-of-the-art organic and inorganic geochemical tracers.