CARBON SEQUESTRATION POTENTIAL OF URBAN TREES Prachi ...

Lake 2010: Wetlands, Biodiversity and Climate Change

CARBON SEQUESTRATION POTENTIAL OF URBAN TREES Prachi Ugle1, Sankara Rao2 and T.V. Ramachandra1, 2 1

Centre for Infrastructure, Sustainable Transport and Urban Planning, IISc, Bangalore, India 2

Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISc, Bangalore, India Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT: Climate change is widely recognized not just as an environmental issue but one with severe socioeconomic implications across the globe. The impact of higher temperature, erratic precipitation, extreme weather events and rise in sea level are felt at local, regional and global levels. As the living space in urban areas are becoming rapidly cluttered and haphazard and as concrete jungles continue to degrade the natural and aesthetic environment and turning it into heat islands, there is a need to revive urban green efforts. Trees are considered to be major capital assets in cities as they provide myriad of benefits. They provide shade, filter air pollutants, absorb greenhouse gases, improve property value and contribute to aesthetic beauty. In recognition of the importance of urban trees and in an effort to build the native biodiversity and generate ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration within the urban landscape, an attempt has been made to address the potential of trees in carbon sequestration. Assessment of carbon sequestration of urban trees is carried out through biomass estimation and quantification. Trees are identified to species level, and their diameter at breast height (DBH) and height are recorded using ground measurements. Such studies highlight the role of urban tree cover in carbon sequestration and emphasize the need for greater attention to be paid to the selection of trees in cities, not just with a view to easy maintenance as is currently the case, but to select an appropriate mix of trees that supports biodiversity and maximizes environmental services. Keywords: Climate change, Carbon, Sequestration, Biomass, Biodiversity

INTRODUCTION: Importance of forested areas in carbon sequestration is already accepted, and well documented (FSI, 1988, and Tiwari and Singh, 1987), however not many attempts have been made to address the potential of trees in carbon sequestration in Urban scenario. Carbon sequestration is a phenomenon for the storage of CO2 or other forms of carbon to mitigate global warming and its one of the important clause of Kyoto Protocol, through biological, chemical or physical processes; CO2 is captured from the atmosphere. The Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 1997) has provided a vehicle for considering the effects of carbon sinks and sources, as well as addressing issues related to fossil fuels emissions. Carbon sequestration is a way to mitigate the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere released by the burning of fossil fuels and other anthropogenic activities. Forest ecosystem plays very

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Lake 2010: Wetlands, Biodiversity and Climate Change important role in the global carbon cycle. Alongside forest ecosystem, recognizing the importance of urban trees, the interest in preserving and maintaining the urban trees is increasing. Although the Kyoto protocol does not apply to urban vegetation, post-Kyoto protocol may include urban vegetation, which may pave way as an opportunity to increase public awareness of trees in cities and its potential to significantly affect decision making.Ever since carbon has been introduced as commodity in the world of climate change, estimation of carbon stock and carbon sequestration rate has expanded its market and estimation of biomass has gained importance. Biomass assessment is important for many purposes (Parresol, 1999; Zhengetal., 2004). It is aimed at resource use and for environmental management. In the light of environmental management, biomass assessment is an important indicator in carbon sequestration. Despite extensive evidence of the critical role played by urban trees in city environments, urban planners and architects have often undervalued the role played by trees as firstly, urbanization affects climate; cities tend to become hotter and create what is known as an urban heat island. Secondly, urbanization affects hydrology; cities shed more water as run-off into their streams and rivers, thirdly cities are net producers of carbon dioxide and have lower amounts of stored carbon. Fourth, cities are widely regarded as having lower biodiversity. If we are to make the cities of the future more sustainable we must learn to minimize and manage these ecological effects. Benefits of urban trees: •

Amelioration of urban climate extremes

•

Mitigation of urban heat islands

•

Store and sequester carbon

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Reduce noise pollution

•

Improve air quality

•

Reduce consumption of electricity for heating and cooling

•

Aesthetic contribution, scenic beauty, visual amenity

•

Improve property value

•

Improve general livability and quality of urban life

•

Contribute to human health and relaxation, reduce stress and anxiety levels

REVIEW OF LITERATURE: One of the pressing issues in today’s world is carbon-dioxide emissions and climate change. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of the more abundant greenhouse gases and a primary cause for global warming. It constitutes 72% of the total anthropogenic greenhouse gases, causing between 9-26% of the greenhouse effect (Kiehl and Trenberth, 1997). IPCC (2007) reported that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased from 280 ppm in the pre-industrial era (1750) to379 ppm in 2005, and is increasing by 1.5 ppm per year. Dramatic rise of CO2 concentration is attributed largely to human activities. Over the last 20 years, majority of the emission is attributed to burning of fossil fuel, while 10-30% is attributed to land use change and deforestation (IPCC, 2001). As per the IPCC report of 2001 climate has


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Lake 2010: Wetlands, Biodiversity and Climate Change changed over the past century and it is very likely that human activities are causing it. However concerns over potential global climate change have reached international level since the first “World Climate Conference” was organized by World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1979. In response, WMO and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988. Four years later, an international environmental treaty, called United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), was formulated aiming at reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. Article 4 of the UNFCCC requires preventing and minimizing climate change by “limiting anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse and protecting and enhancing greenhouse gas sinks and reservoirs” (United Nations, 1992). While UNFCCC did not specifically mention limits for GHG emissions, the Kyoto Protocol, implemented in 2005, stipulates that for the commitment period of 2008-2012. The global carbon cycle is one of key research issues in the studies of climate change and regional sustainable development as well as one of main subjects for international coordinated research programs on global change (SINO, 2005). The Bruntland World Commission on Environment and Development (1987) identified a number of serious environmental problems caused by rapid urban growth. Jenkins (1999) compared carbon stocks and fluxes in forested and non-forested areas, and concluded that non forested areas (open spaces and agricultural land in intra and peri-urban areas) could add substantially to current estimates of local, regional and national carbon balances. Chiari and Seeland (2004) have highlighted the role of urban forests as a place of social integration as they provide recreation and relief to the urban population from their hectic life. Gatrell and Jenson (2002) have discussed economical, ecological, and aesthetic benefits of urban forests in detail. The instrumental functions of urban forests have been extensively studied in recent years, few studies conducted in this direction include quantifying CO2sequestration by urban forests (McPherson,1998) and (McPherson and Simpson,2000), studies on air pollution reduction by urban trees (Nowak, 1994b, 2006 and Nowak etal, 2000) and studies on energy saving by trees (Akbarietal, 2001, Rosenfeld etal, 1998 and Simpson,1998).Carbon sequestration potential studies that included aggregating the value of carbon present in each tree was carried out by (Haase and Haase, 1995; Nelson etal, Keller etal., 2001; Ketterings., 2001). Attempts have been made to study the potential of trees in carbon sequestration from urban areas in Pune, India (Warran, A., Patwardhan. A, 2005, and Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India by Chavan.B.S and Rasal, 2010). These studies highlighted the need for focusing on non-forested but tree dominated areas such as university campus, including avenues and public gardens role in carbon sequestration as these areas comes under cities and infrastructure, these aspects definitely add to the conservation value of institutionally safeguarded areas.

Urban Growth and Urban Green Spaces:

Cities account for 78% of carbon emissions. In 1800, there was only one city, Beijing, in the entire world that had more than a million people; we have 326 such cities 200 years later (Brown 2001). Indeed, such rapid has been the pace of growth that in 1900 just 10% of the global population was living in urban areas which now exceeds 50% and is expected to further rise to 67% in the next 50 years (Grimm etal. 2008). In developing countries, about 44 per cent of the


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Lake 2010: Wetlands, Biodiversity and Climate Change population currently lives in urban areas, but in the next 20 to 30 years, developing countries in Asia and Africa are likely to cross that historic threshold, joining Latin America in having a majority of urban residents (UN-Habitat 2009, Montgomery 2008). Rapid urbanization in India is bringing complex changes to ecology, economy and society (DeFries and Pandey 2010). During the last 50 years the population of India has grown two and a half times, but the urban population has grown nearly five times (Taubenböcketal. 2009). About 60% of this urban population growth is attributable to natural growth, and the remaining 40% is due to migration and spatial expansion (Sivaramakrishnanetal. 2005). Many policy and robust scientific evidences in last two decades have emphasized the critical necessity of green areas within urban social-ecological systems to ameliorate several problems of city-living; however the trend of urban ecology and application of its principles is still lagging behind.Urban ecology though considered as a young science, yet its ecological principles are as valid in cities as they are in wilderness areas, and indeed should be better understood to manage the increasing environmental and social problems in cities and future research should focus on the said urban ecological services. In developing countries, urban green spaces may provide the only reference to “nature” that we will ever experience, providing important social and psychological functions that substantially improve the quality of city life (Botkin and Beveridge 1997; Long and Nair 1999; Chaudhary and Tewari 2010; Aminzadeh and Khansefid, 2010.

A study of 439 cities in China in 1991 noted that the overall green space was 380,000 ha or 20.1% of the urban area. Some 40% of the cities had more than 30% green cover in 1991 (Ming and Profous 1993). The green space coverage and public green area per capita were 16.9%, and 3.5 m², respectively, in 1986 and increased to 23.0%, and 6.52 m² by 2000 (Wang 2009). Further, by the end of 2006, greening coverage in China’s cities has increased to 32.54%. Since 1994 some 34 million trees have been planted in and around Nanjing city, China giving a figure of 23 trees per city dweller (Jim and Liu 2000). While Beijing has experienced extensive urbanization in the past two decades Beijing municipality has rich vascular plant diversity (2,276 species), including 207 species of conservation concern such as endemic, threatened and protected species (Wang etal. 2007). In India, except for a few cities, urban forests are not well-studied. There are, however, some studies on Bangalore (Sudha and Ravindranath, 2000, Nagendra and Gopal 2010), Mitra, 1993 and Madan, 1993 on urban forest of Vishakapatnam City), Chandigarh (Chaudhary 2006; Chaudhary and Tewari 2010a, b; FSI 2009) and Delhi (FSI 2009). Some studies such as biodiversity and carbon storage are also available for Bhopal (Dwivedi et al. 2009), Delhi (Khera 2009), Jaipur (Verma 1985, Dubey and Pandey 1993), Mumbai (Zérah 2007) and Pune (Patwardhanetal. 2001). A few studies are also available for specific locations within the urban ecosystems, such as NEERI Campus, Nagpur (Gupta etal. 2008) and Indian Institute of Science Campus, Bangalore (Mhatre 2008).

Urban forest in 43 ha of NEERI campus at Nagpur, Maharashtra has 135 vascular plants including 16 monocots and 119 dicots, belonging to 115 genera and 53 families. The taxa included 4 types of grasses, 55 herbs, 30 shrubs and 46 trees. The large number of species within very small area indicates rich biodiversity in this urban forest (Gupta et al. 2008). Bangalore is an interesting case of the fastest growing city in India, with regard to tree vegetation, tree crown cover of the city has shown a decline from 1912 to 1980. But, during the period 1980-1985, there has been an increase in crown cover from 3.8 to 19.9% of the land area (Beheraet al. 1985). A comprehensive study on urban forests of Bangalore


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Lake 2010: Wetlands, Biodiversity and Climate Change found 374 species in the different land-use categories. Species richness was found highest in parks (291 species), followed by residential areas (164), institutions (126), temples (107) and commercial areas (Sudha and Ravindranath 2000). Although, density of street trees in Bangalore is lower than many other Asian cities, the species diversity is high (Nagendra and Gopal 2010). Another unique example is of IISc campus, which spans over 400 acres of land in the middle of the city, has rich collection of plants: 112 species of trees belonging to 32 families, 225 species of non-woody plants belonging to 52 families and 45 species of grasses. The campus is one of the rich species centers of Bangalore; others are Cubbon park (approximately 300 sp.) and LalBagh. (Sankara Rao, 2009).

Carbon Sequestration Potential:

During photosynthesis, trees convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar molecules and oxygen, some of this sugar is stored, while most of it gets used by the tree for other purposes such as energy and structure. A great deal of the sugar is linked together to form cellulosewhich provides the structure for the tree and if one looks at this sugar from a mass standpoint, we see that a large fraction of it is due to thecarbon. The fact that carbon has an atomic mass of 12, hydrogen has an atomic mass of 1, andoxygen has an atomic mass of 16 means that most of the mass of the sugar moleculecomes from carbon.One tonne of carbon storage in the tree therefore represents removal of 44/12 or 3.67 tonnes of Carbon from the atmosphere, and the release of 2.67 tonnes of oxygen back into the atmosphere. Urban trees in the Coterminous USA, store 700 million tonnes of carbon with a gross carbon sequestration rate of 22.8 million tC/yr. The national average urban forest carbon storage density is 25.1 tC/ha, compared with 53.5 tC/ ha in forest stands (Nowak & Crane 2002). These urban trees also remove large amounts of air pollutants that consequently improve urban air quality. Few studies indicated that 600 trees in the tropics would fill one acre, which could sequester up to 15 tonnes of CO2 annually (Nowak, 1994), other statistics include 40 trees will sequester one tonne of CO2 each year; and that one million trees covering 1,667 acres could capture 25,000 tonnes of CO2 annually. About 4,00,000 trees planted in Canberra are estimated to have a combined energy reduction, pollution mitigation and carbon sequestration value of US$20–67 million during the period 2008–2012 in Canberra (Brack 2002). Likewise, the City of Tshwane Metropolitan municipality in South Africa has 115,200 indigenous street trees planted during the period 2002–2008. It has been estimated that the tree planting will result in 200,492 tonnes CO2 equivalent reduction and that 54,630 tonnes carbon will be sequestrated. A study in 2002 suggests that trees in the central part of Beijing removed 1261.4 tonnes of pollutants from the air. The air pollutant that was most reduced was PM10 (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of 10μm), the reduction amounted to 772 tonnes. In addition, the carbon dioxide (CO2) stored in biomass form by the urban forest amounted to about 0.2 million tons (Yang et al. 2005).


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Lake 2010: Wetlands, Biodiversity and Climate Change It is estimated that total carbon stored by the urban trees is 23.8 million tonnes from an estimated 7.79 million ha urban area, i.e. 3.01 tonnes of carbon/ha. Urban forests contribute only 2.21% of the carbon stock against 17.11 tons carbon/ha from overall forest and tree cover. Thus, there is an ample scope to increase contribution of urban forests to overall carbon stocks. (National Mission for a Green India - document, 2009), the Sub Mission has the potential of enhancement of carbon stocks by 0.06 million tons of carbon per year amounting to 0.22 CO2-e per year. Few of the studies carried out in India are “Sequestered standing carbon stock in selective tree species of University campus at Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India (Chauhan and Rasal, 2007) which showed the above ground biomass for trees as follows: Ficusreligiosa is 4.27, t/tree, FicusBenghalensis 3.89, t/tree, Mangiferaindica3.13, t/tree, Delonixregia 2.12, t/tree, Buteamonosperma 2.10, t/tree, Peltophorumpterocarpum 2.01, t/tree, Azadirachtaindica 1.91, t/tree, Pongamiapinnata 1.57t/tree respectively, in a study carried out in and around Pune Carbon Sequestration Potential of Trees in 2002 (Warran and Patwardhan, 2005) showed the rate of carbon sequestered by the trees was 15,000 tons per year. In yet another study it was estimated that a 20-year-old Silver oak shade tree can sequester up to 41.8 Mg/ha of carbon (Niranjana K.S and Viswanath.S, 2005). The study emphasize that when the urban trees are young the standing carbon stock is not substantial, however, the growth of the trees represents a potential increase in biomass and hence carbon sequestration is dependent on the growth rate. The case of Kerwa urban forest area in Bhopal is another Indian case that supports several threatened and endangered plant, animal, and bird species. It also plays a critical role as a carbon sink with a total storage of about 19.5 thousand tonnes of aboveground carbon (Dwivedietal. 2009).

Biomass and Carbon: Assessment of biomass provides information on the structure and functional attributes of trees. With approximately 50% of dry biomass comprises of carbon (Westlake, 1966, Brown & Lugo 1982, Houghton et al. 1985; Koch 1989, Schroeder 1992, Dixon 1994; Cannel et al. 1995; Richter et al. 1995; Ravindranathet al. 1997, Montagnini and Porras, 1998; Losiet al., 2003; Montagu et al., 2005), biomass assessments illustrate the amount of carbon that may be sequestered by trees, Biomass is an important indicator in carbon sequestration therefore estimating the biomass in trees is the first step in carbon accounting. Lu (2006) mentioned three approaches to biomass assessment. These are field measurement, remote sensing, and GIS-based approach. The field measurement is considered to be accurate (Lu, 2006) but proves to be very costly and time consuming (de Gier, 2003). In any of these approaches, ground data is important for validation. In the case of remote sensing, ground data is needed to develop the biomass predictive data. This means, it is always necessary for a field measurement of biomass for validation purposes. Two methods of measuring sample tree biomass are available: (1) destructive and (2) non-destructive. Direct or destructive method of tree biomass involves felling an appropriate number of trees and estimating their field- and oven-dry weights, (Cairns etal 2003, Saint – Andre etal, 2004, Xiao et al, 2004) a method that is accurate however it is impractical. Rather than performing destructive sampling all the time in the field, an alternative method (non- destructive) can be used that predicts biomass given some easily measurable predictor variable, such as “tree diameter” and “height” can be used. Many studies were conducted to develop biomass equation that relates dry biomass of trees to its biophysical variables (e.g. diameter-at-breast height


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Lake 2010: Wetlands, Biodiversity and Climate Change (dbh), tree height) (Aboal, 2005; Araujo, 1999; Arevalo, 2007; Brown, 1997; Cole and Ewel, 2006; de Gier, 1989, 1999, 2003; Ketterings etal, 2001; Overman, 1994; Zianis and Mencuccini, 2004) and basal area (Murali etal, 2005).Therefore species specific equations using basal area(BA), height (H), diameter at breast height (DBH)and volumetric equations based on wood density of individual tree species and allometric based regression equations for the trees which does not have species specific biomass equations areused to calculate the biomass based on the available literature.

SUMMARY: Urban dwellers need to recognize and articulate the importance of urban trees as a vital component of the urban landscape. There is a need for greater attention to be paid to the selection of trees in cities, not just with a view to easy maintenance as is currently the case, but to select an appropriate mix of treesbecause if we view the current trend across the cities for tree diversity, the exotics dominate the native species and the value of native species as an sustainable asset is often ignored therefore challenge towards building native biodiversityis needed as it may bring about ecological integrity and ability to sequester carbon in legible landscapes. Native trees like Azadirachtaindica (Neem), Tamarindusindica (Tamarind), Ficusreligiosa (Peepal) and Madhucalatifolia are considered ecologically beneficial as they have relatively high efficiency of carbon fixation; these species may be suitable for checking urban pollution and may provide a good option for maximum carbon fixation. Further research in the direction of estimation of urban tree biomass; diameter distribution is required as it helps in determining which tree species are best for carbon sequestration. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: We acknowledge the support extended by Prof. T.G.Sitharam, Chairman, Centre for Sustainable Transport and Urban Planning (CiSTUP), IISC, Bangalore. I am thankful to Dr. T.V.Ramachandra and Prof. K. Sankara Rao, Centre for Ecological Sciences, IISC, Bangalore for providing valuable inputs and suggestions. REFERENCES: 1.

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