Influence of Enhancing Urban Vegetation on Above-Ground Carbon Sequestration Dynamics in Arid Urban Lands: Case Study in Doha City, Qatar

The intensive emissions of anthropogenic carbon dioxide are one of the most significant risks in this era to the environment. Although, many policies and solutions were working to reduce the amount to retain the global warming, these solutions are either expensive, short-termed, or industrial-based technologies. This makes them unsustainable with respect to economic values. The optimum solutions of all times are the natural solutions that can hold the capacity to abate CO₂ on long term bases with long-term productivity. Natural carbon sinks are considered to be effective resources that capture atmospheric carbon and transferred it into different pathways or store it underground. Terrestrial ecosystem including forests and vegetation systems are by default a form of sustainable carbon sink. Involving vegetation and greeneries in the urban system brings various benefits. Urban greeneries are not just for aesthetic deign. They are essential for inhabitants physical, societal, and mental health. Removing air pollutants, protecting the soil, preventing floods and run-off water accumulation, enhancing biodiversity, and improving mental health are significant properties of involving natural system into the urban system. This research approach focused on finding and applying a proper methodology to quantify the amount of atmospheric carbon sequestered by the urban vegetation. Understanding the types of carbon pools and the proper method to be applied accordingly is critical in quantifying the absorbed, stored and transferred atmospheric carbon. Hence, a thorough literature review was performed on the various accounting methodologies and their specifications and implementations. It was found that carbon pools are in above-ground (trees and vegetation), belowground (roots), soil, and dead matters (litterfall). The quantification methods for each differ based on the data available and applicability of measurements (direct measurements, indirect measurements, remote sensing, and data analysis). To test some of these methods, a practical study was done to quantify the above-ground carbon stock and sequestration of the greeneries and vegetation in different land-use types of an arid urban area (i.e, Doha city). This study included field survey, nondestructive measurements, allometric equations, and was correlated with remote sensing using Landsat8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and indirect measurements (vegetative indices analysis). The regression and correlation models showed a positive correlation with reliability reaching up to 92%. This result could prove the similarity in values between the field measurements and remote sensing data and can further predict the amount of above-ground carbon stocks using remote sensing data. With further developments in the equations, such results can help estimating the amount of carbon found above-ground on different lands in Qatar.