- Title
- Current and potential carbon stocks of trees in urban parking lots in towns of the Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Creator
- O'Donoghue, Alexandra, Shackleton, Charlie M
- Subject
- To be catalogued
- Date
- 2013
- Type
- text
- Type
- article
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/181037
- Identifier
- vital:43689
- Identifier
- xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2013.07.001"
- Description
- Greening of shopping centre parking lots is a potentially important strategy that can contribute to urban carbon mitigation efforts, improve aesthetics and the shopping experience of consumers, whilst adding to urban biodiversity. Twenty-eight shopping centre parking lots in six Eastern Cape urban centres, South Africa, were sampled to determine tree species composition, density and annual carbon sequestration potential. The best case parking lot found during the study was used as a benchmark to display the difference between current tree density and above-ground carbon stocks relative to the potential optimum. The highest tree density was 66 trees ha−1, whereas the average density across all sampled parking lots was less than half that (27.2 ± 22.6 trees ha−1). The average annual carbon sequestration potential per parking lot was 1390 ± 2503 kg ha−1. Planting density was positively related to annual sequestration rates, whilst parking lot age and the mean annual rainfall of the town had no influence. Mean tree species richness per parking lot was 2.3 ± 1.8 species, with a positive relationship to parking lot size, but not to mean annual rainfall of the site. The majority of trees (62.5%) in parking lots were alien species, although newer parking lots had significantly greater proportions of indigenous species. There was no difference in mean annual carbon sequestration rate per tree between indigenous and alien trees species. Low tree densities and small parking lot areas constrained the potential for earning carbon credits from trees in parking lots. Nonetheless, planners and designers need to be more aware of the potential contribution of trees towards urban sustainability.
- Format
- computer, online resource, application/pdf, 1 online resource (7 pages), pdf
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Urban Forestry and Urban Greening, O’Donoghue, A. and Shackleton, C.M., 2013. Current and potential carbon stocks of trees in urban parking lots in towns of the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Urban forestry and urban greening, 12(4), pp.443-449, Urban Forestry and Urban Greening volume 12 number 4 p.443 2013 1618-8667
- Rights
- Publisher
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Elsevier Terms and Conditions Statement (https://www.elsevier.com/legal/elsevier-website-terms-and-conditions)
- Rights
- Closed Access
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Collections
RU DST/NRF SARChI for Interdisciplinary Science in Land and Natural Resource Use for Sustainable Livelihoods
RU Department of Environmental Science
SDG 11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
Shackleton, Charles Michael (Distinguished Prof)
SDG 15. Life On Land
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details | SOURCE1 | Current and potential carbon stocks of trees in urban parking lots in towns of the Eastern Cape, South Africa.pdf | 750 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details |