Carbon storage and sequestration in Southeast Asian urban clusters under future land cover change scenarios (2015–2050)

Land-use land-cover (LULC) changes are occurring rapidly in Southeast Asia (SEA), generally associated with population growth, economic development and competing demands for land. Land cover change is one of the vital factors affecting carbon dynamics and emissions. SEA is an important region to stu...

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Main Authors: Kamarajugedda, Shankar Acharya, Johnson, Justin Andrew, McDonald, Robert, Hamel, Perrine
Other Authors: Asian School of the Environment
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/169210
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author Kamarajugedda, Shankar Acharya
Johnson, Justin Andrew
McDonald, Robert
Hamel, Perrine
author2 Asian School of the Environment
author_facet Asian School of the Environment
Kamarajugedda, Shankar Acharya
Johnson, Justin Andrew
McDonald, Robert
Hamel, Perrine
author_sort Kamarajugedda, Shankar Acharya
collection NTU
description Land-use land-cover (LULC) changes are occurring rapidly in Southeast Asia (SEA), generally associated with population growth, economic development and competing demands for land. Land cover change is one of the vital factors affecting carbon dynamics and emissions. SEA is an important region to study urban-caused LULC emissions and the potential for nature-based solutions (NBS) and nature climate solutions (NCS), as it is home to nearly 15% of the world’s tropical forests and has some of the world’s fastest rates of urban growth. We present a fine-scale urban cluster level assessment for SEA of current (2015) and future (2050) scenarios for carbon sequestration service and climate mitigation potential. We identified 956 urban clusters distributed across 11 countries of SEA. Considering the urban expansion projected and decline in forests, this region could see a carbon loss of up to 0.11 Gigatonnes (Scenario SSP4 RCP 3.4). Comparing carbon change values to urban emissions, we found that the average offset value ranging from −2% (Scenario SSP1 RCP 2.6) to −21%. We also found that a few medium and large urban clusters could add to more than double the existing carbon emissions in 2050 in the SSP3 and SSP4 RCP 3.4 scenarios, while a minority of clusters could offset their emissions under SSP1. Our study confirms that NCS, and particularly reforestation, are in many cases able to offset the direct emissions from land cover conversion from SEA urban clusters. Hence, documenting the plausible LULC transitions and the associated impacts gains significance in the SEA region as the results can be useful for informing policy and sustainable land management.
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spelling ntu-10356/1692102023-07-10T15:30:35Z Carbon storage and sequestration in Southeast Asian urban clusters under future land cover change scenarios (2015–2050) Kamarajugedda, Shankar Acharya Johnson, Justin Andrew McDonald, Robert Hamel, Perrine Asian School of the Environment Earth Observatory of Singapore Science::Geology Urban Clusters Carbon Emissions Land-use land-cover (LULC) changes are occurring rapidly in Southeast Asia (SEA), generally associated with population growth, economic development and competing demands for land. Land cover change is one of the vital factors affecting carbon dynamics and emissions. SEA is an important region to study urban-caused LULC emissions and the potential for nature-based solutions (NBS) and nature climate solutions (NCS), as it is home to nearly 15% of the world’s tropical forests and has some of the world’s fastest rates of urban growth. We present a fine-scale urban cluster level assessment for SEA of current (2015) and future (2050) scenarios for carbon sequestration service and climate mitigation potential. We identified 956 urban clusters distributed across 11 countries of SEA. Considering the urban expansion projected and decline in forests, this region could see a carbon loss of up to 0.11 Gigatonnes (Scenario SSP4 RCP 3.4). Comparing carbon change values to urban emissions, we found that the average offset value ranging from −2% (Scenario SSP1 RCP 2.6) to −21%. We also found that a few medium and large urban clusters could add to more than double the existing carbon emissions in 2050 in the SSP3 and SSP4 RCP 3.4 scenarios, while a minority of clusters could offset their emissions under SSP1. Our study confirms that NCS, and particularly reforestation, are in many cases able to offset the direct emissions from land cover conversion from SEA urban clusters. Hence, documenting the plausible LULC transitions and the associated impacts gains significance in the SEA region as the results can be useful for informing policy and sustainable land management. National Research Foundation (NRF) Published version This study was funded by the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office, Singapore (Grant number: NRF-NRFF12- 2020-0009). 2023-07-07T05:29:29Z 2023-07-07T05:29:29Z 2023 Journal Article Kamarajugedda, S. A., Johnson, J. A., McDonald, R. & Hamel, P. (2023). Carbon storage and sequestration in Southeast Asian urban clusters under future land cover change scenarios (2015–2050). Frontiers in Environmental Science, 11. https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2023.1105759 2296-665X https://hdl.handle.net/10356/169210 10.3389/fenvs.2023.1105759 2-s2.0-85152030624 11 en NRF-NRFF12- 2020-0009 Frontiers in Environmental Science © 2023 Kamarajugedda, Johnson, McDonald and Hamel. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. application/pdf
spellingShingle Science::Geology
Urban Clusters
Carbon Emissions
Kamarajugedda, Shankar Acharya
Johnson, Justin Andrew
McDonald, Robert
Hamel, Perrine
Carbon storage and sequestration in Southeast Asian urban clusters under future land cover change scenarios (2015–2050)
title Carbon storage and sequestration in Southeast Asian urban clusters under future land cover change scenarios (2015–2050)
title_full Carbon storage and sequestration in Southeast Asian urban clusters under future land cover change scenarios (2015–2050)
title_fullStr Carbon storage and sequestration in Southeast Asian urban clusters under future land cover change scenarios (2015–2050)
title_full_unstemmed Carbon storage and sequestration in Southeast Asian urban clusters under future land cover change scenarios (2015–2050)
title_short Carbon storage and sequestration in Southeast Asian urban clusters under future land cover change scenarios (2015–2050)
title_sort carbon storage and sequestration in southeast asian urban clusters under future land cover change scenarios 2015 2050
topic Science::Geology
Urban Clusters
Carbon Emissions
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/169210
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