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. 2023 Jul 8;18(1):11.
doi: 10.1186/s13021-023-00230-4.

A national assessment of urban forest carbon storage and sequestration in Canada

James W N Steenberg  1 , Melissa Ristow  2 , Peter N Duinker  2 , Lyna Lapointe-Elmrabti  3 , J Douglas MacDonald  3 , David J Nowak  4 , Jon Pasher  3 , Corey Flemming  3 , Cameron Samson  3
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A national assessment of urban forest carbon storage and sequestration in Canada

James W N Steenberg et al. Carbon Balance Manag. .

Abstract

During a time of rapid urban growth and development, it is becoming ever more important to monitor the carbon fluxes of our cities. Unlike Canada's commercially managed forests that have a long history of inventory and modelling tools, there is both a lack of coordinated data and considerable uncertainty on assessment procedures for urban forest carbon. Nonetheless, independent studies have been carried out across Canada. To improve upon Canada's federal government reporting on carbon storage and sequestration by urban forests, this study builds on existing data to develop an updated assessment of carbon storage and sequestration for Canada's urban forests. Using canopy cover estimates derived from ortho-imagery and satellite imagery ranging from 2008 to 2012 and field-based urban forest inventory and assessment data from 16 Canadian cities and one US city, this study found that Canadian urban forests store approximately 27,297.8 kt C (- 37%, + 45%) in above and belowground biomass and sequester approximately 1497.7 kt C year-1 (- 26%, + 28%). In comparison with the previous national assessment of urban forest carbon, this study suggested that in urban areas carbon storage has been overestimated and carbon sequestration has been underestimated. Maximizing urban forest carbon sinks will contribute to Canada's mitigation efforts and, while being a smaller carbon sink compared to commercial forests, will also provide important ecosystem services and co-benefits to approximately 83% of Canadian people.

Keywords: Canopy cover; Climate change; Greenhouse gases (GHG); Land sector; Mitigation; National inventory.

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Conflict of interest statement

I declare that the authors have no competing interests as defined by BMC, or other interests that might be perceived to influence the results and/or discussion reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
RUs with available urban forest assessment datasets for re-calculating carbon storage and sequestration densities. RU numbering is defined in Table 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
a Carbon storage and b carbon sequestration densities per unit tree cover for 18 RUs across Canada
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
A comparison of a carbon storage and b carbon sequestration assessed in this study with the assessed carbon values presented in Pasher et al. [22]
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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