Multi-sensor satellite data for carbon storage mapping of green space in a fast growing development corridor in Malaysia

Disturbances such as deforestation and land use change on natural vegetation have caused carbon dioxide (CO2) emission to the atmosphere which contributes to global warming and climate change. Malaysia has started to take necessary steps to mitigate the potential impact of increased CO2 and integrating the green infrastructure into urban planning is a way to go. Green space in urban environment provides a variety of benefits to the community by sequestrating carbon, absorbing urban emissions and producing oxygen. In this study we quantified the carbon storage capacity of various green spaces, namely forests, mangroves and urban parks by biometric measurements and remote sensing techniques at a rapidly developing economy region in Iskandar Malaysia (IM) in the southern Peninsular Malaysia that covers an area of 2,217 km2. Satellite imageries such as RapidEye and Advanced Land Observing Satellite phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar) were used for mapping the carbon content of different vegetation in IM. The spatial distribution of carbon storage shows that mangroves contribute the largest amount of carbon storage in IM with 0.437M t C and this is mainly due to their vast area (8382 ha). This is followed by tropical forest (0.185M t C). However, tropical forest has the highest carbon density with 161.7 tC ha-1 compared to mangroves (52.1 tC ha-1). In general, trees in urban parks have lower carbon storage (ranging between 32.63 tC ha-1 to 48.81 tC ha-1) compared to forests and mangrove. In total, these vegetation types in IM remove ~2.29 M tCO2eq. Green space in IM was found to remove about 3% of carbon emitted to the air in IM. These results suggest that the government must make firm policies to increase more green cover in the urban areas and to preserve the existing green space for improving environmental quality for people and supporting biodiversity conservation