Carbon Reduction Services of Evergreen Broadleaved Landscape Trees for Ilex rotunda and Machilus thunbergii in Southern Korea

초록

This study quantified carbon reduction services through direct harvesting of Ilex rotunda and Machilus thunbergii, which are the typical urban landscape tree species in southern Korea. A total of 20 open-grown tree specimens (10 specimens for each species) were selected reflecting various sizes of stem diameter at breast height of 1.2 m (DBH) at a regular interval. The study measured biomass for each part of the tree specimens including roots to compute total carbon storage per tree. Annual carbon uptake per tree was also calculated analyzing the DBH growth rate of stem disk specimens. Quantitative models were developed using DBH as an independent variable to easily estimate storage and annual uptake of carbon by tree growth for each species. All the models had a high goodness-of-fit with R2=0.95-0.99. The difference in carbon reduction services between DBH sizes increased with increasing DBH. The storage and annual uptake of carbon from a tree with DBH of 10 cm were 13.5 kg and 2.4 kg/yr for I. rotunda, and 19.1 kg and 3.6 kg/yr for M. thunbergii, respectively. The tree of this size stored the amount of carbon equivalent to that emitted from a gasoline use of approximately 24 L for I. rotunda and 34 L for M. thunbergii, respectively. The study provides actual measurement data to quantify carbon reduction services of urban open-grown landscape trees for the warm-temperate species that have been little known until now.

키워드