Sustainable Management of Carbon Sequestration Service in Areas with High Development Pressure: Considering Land Use Changes and Carbon Costs

Joungyoon Chun,Woo-Kyun Lee,Wanmo Kang,Gieun Kim,Choong-Ki Kim,Hyemin Park

doi:10.3390/su11185116

Abstract

In countries and regions where development projects are frequently implemented, there is a significant change in the value of carbon sequestration services according to land use and land cover (LULC) changes. In this study, we analyzed the changes in the carbon sequestration services which occurred due to the LULC changes over a 20 years period (1989–2009) in Korea where local development projects have been active, since 1990s. As a result, the total carbon stocks decreased by about 0.07 billion t C. Significant changes in the carbon stocks mostly occurred in areas where development projects were frequently implemented. The loss of economic value due to the changes in carbon stocks over 20 years was 4.7 trillion won (4159 million USD) when market price of carbon is applied. Therefore, in countries and regions where there is an active development, it is necessary to monitor the land-use changes with high carbon stocks, to reconsider the value of the carbon when making policy decisions which cause LULC changes, and to internalize social costs into the market prices. Especially at a local level, it is necessary to promote management policy based on carbon sequestration services in accordance with local conditions such as size and types of the changes in carbon stocks.

Highlights

The climate change regulation service provided by the ecosystem through the carbon storage capacity is one of the most important ecosystem services [1]
We have investigated the changes of the carbon stocks according to the land use and land cover (LULC) change between 1989 and 2009 when the regional development projects were actively implemented in Korea
The standing forest carbon stocks based on the 2009 LULC map were well-corresponded with the Korea Forest Service (KFS) observation data derived from field survey (Table A4 in the Appendix A)

Summary

Introduction

The climate change regulation service provided by the ecosystem through the carbon storage capacity is one of the most important ecosystem services [1]. All kinds of man-made global environmental change are giving serious negative impacts on the carbon storage capacity. The land use and land cover (LULC) changes, such as urbanization and deforestation, can be a spatial factor which gives direct impacts on the carbon storage capacity of the ecosystem [1]. Urbanization acts as a pressure to the ecosystem that plays a significant role in storing the carbon [1,4] and leads to a decrease of the carbon storage capacity [4,5]. Diminution of natural areas such as forest, agricultural land and wetland leads to a decrease of the carbon storage capacity. The LULC changes in forest areas give impacts to the carbon storage and carbon fluxes from local to global scale [6,7]

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Discussion

Conclusion