McHugh Nicola, Edmondson Jill L, Gaston Kevin J, Leake Jonathan R, O'Sullivan Odhran S
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences University of Sheffield Alfred Denny Building Western Bank Sheffield S10 2TN UK.
Environment and Sustainability Institute University of Exeter Penryn Cornwall TR10 9FE UK.
J Appl Ecol. 2015 Oct;52(5):1237-1245. doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.12491. Epub 2015 Jul 16.
The capacity of urban areas to deliver provisioning ecosystem services is commonly overlooked and underutilized. Urban populations have globally increased fivefold since 1950, and they disproportionately consume ecosystem services and contribute to carbon emissions, highlighting the need to increase urban sustainability and reduce environmental impacts of urban dwellers. Here, we investigated the potential for increasing carbon sequestration, and biomass fuel production, by planting trees and short-rotation coppice (SRC), respectively, in a mid-sized UK city as a contribution to meeting national commitments to reduce CO emissions.Iterative GIS models were developed using high-resolution spatial data. The models were applied to patches of public and privately owned urban greenspace suitable for planting trees and SRC, across the 73 km area of the city of Leicester. We modelled tree planting with a species mix based on the existing tree populations, and SRC with willow and poplar to calculate biomass production in new trees, and carbon sequestration into harvested biomass over 25 years.An area of 11 km comprising 15% of the city met criteria for tree planting and had the potential over 25 years to sequester 4200 tonnes of carbon above-ground. Of this area, 5·8 km also met criteria for SRC planting and over the same period this could yield 71 800 tonnes of carbon in harvested biomass.The harvested biomass could supply energy to over 1566 domestic homes or 30 municipal buildings, resulting in avoided carbon emissions of 29 236 tonnes of carbon over 25 years when compared to heating by natural gas. Together with the net carbon sequestration into trees, a total reduction of 33 419 tonnes of carbon in the atmosphere could be achieved in 25 years by combined SRC and tree planting across the city. . We demonstrate that urban greenspaces in a typical UK city are underutilized for provisioning ecosystem services by trees and especially SRC, which has high biomass production potential. For urban greenspace management, we recommend that planting SRC in urban areas can contribute to reducing food-fuel conflicts on agricultural land and produce renewable energy sources close to centres of population and demand.
城市地区提供供给型生态系统服务的能力通常被忽视且未得到充分利用。自1950年以来，全球城市人口增长了五倍，他们不成比例地消耗生态系统服务并导致碳排放，这凸显了提高城市可持续性和减少城市居民环境影响的必要性。在此，我们调查了通过在英国一个中等规模城市分别种植树木和短轮伐期矮林（SRC）来增加碳固存和生物质燃料生产的潜力，以此作为对实现国家减少碳排放承诺的贡献。利用高分辨率空间数据开发了迭代地理信息系统模型。这些模型被应用于莱斯特市73平方公里区域内适合种植树木和SRC的公共和私有城市绿地斑块。我们基于现有树木种群模拟了混合树种的植树情况，并模拟了柳树和杨树的SRC情况，以计算新树木的生物质产量以及25年内收获生物质中的碳固存。
面积为11平方公里（占城市面积的15%）的区域符合植树标准，在25年内有潜力在地上固存4200吨碳。在这一区域中，5.8平方公里也符合SRC种植标准，在同一时期，收获的生物质中可产生71800吨碳。收获的生物质可为超过1566户家庭或30座市政建筑提供能源，与天然气供暖相比，在25年内可避免29236吨碳排放。加上树木的净碳固存，通过在全市范围内结合种植SRC和树木，25年内可使大气中的碳总量减少33419吨。我们证明，英国一个典型城市的城市绿地在通过树木尤其是具有高生物质生产潜力的SRC提供生态系统服务方面未得到充分利用。对于城市绿地管理，我们建议在城市地区种植SRC有助于减少农业土地上食物 - 燃料冲突，并在靠近人口和需求中心的地方生产可再生能源。
