Determining the carbon footprint of urban forests and estimating the carbon capture capacity: A case study in Serdivan, Sakarya

Global efforts to combat climate change have brought the concept of carbon neutrality to all areas of life, especially production and service sectors. As a result, efforts to calculate the carbon footprint of all activities in human life, such as industry, trade, agriculture, transportation, housing, etc., to develop projects to reduce carbon emissions and to increase carbon sequestration elements have accelerated. This has increased the importance of forests, one of the oldest known carbon sequestration mechanisms. In this study, the carbon sequestration potential of urban forests, which have been increasing rapidly in recent years, and the usability of this potential in generating carbon credits were examined. For this purpose, an urban forest project will be prepared on 14.2 hectares in the Serdivan District of Sakarya Province in Türkiye. Within the scope of the project, it was planned to create an urban forest by planting 5600 pieces of Turkey oak (Quercus cerris) with 5 x 5 planting spacing in the selected area. The carbon sequestration potential of the urban forest over the last 50 years was evaluated by the literature studies and the GPG-LULUCF guideline prepared by IPCC. In the calculations, the change in the planted stem volume of the turkey oak during the calculation period was obtained using the management plan data. According to the results obtained in the study, the total amount of carbon that can be sequestered in 50 years with the urban forest created was determined to be 25 766.49 tons. The distribution of the total carbon sequestered to the carbon sequestration elements in the afforestation area was found to be 38 112,12 tons of carbon in the above-ground biomass, 9 146,91 tons of carbon in the below-ground biomass, 182,94 tons of carbon in the dead wood, 2 899,22 tons of carbon in the dead cover and 7 582,56 tons of carbon in the soil. When the results obtained and the literature data on the subject are evaluated, it can be said that urban forests have a high potential to be used in carbon credit production.