Change of Soil Organic Carbon Density of Alpine Meadow in the Headwater Areas of Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China

Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, known as the “World's Ridge”, exerts an proud impact carbon pool in sustaining global carbon circulation balance in terms of global climate change. In this study, five sites of alpine grassland at different degradation gradient were surveyed in Guoluo Prefecture of Qinghai Province, China. Soil total organic carbon (TOC) was tested for calculating the density of soil organic carbon, to evaluate the grassland ecosystem function of carbon maintenance. The results showed that the ecosystem function of carbon maintenance for alpine grassland varied along the degradation gradient. The function of both heavily degraded and severely degraded grasslands decreased a lot. However, the function of lightly degraded grassland increased a little compared to the non-degraded grassland. Urgent actions are needed to protect alpine grassland against heavy and severe degradation.