Ecosystem Service Delivery by Urban Agriculture as a Nature-Based Solution (NBS): Carbon Sequestration

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-5263456/v1

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Ecosystem Service Delivery by Urban Agriculture as a Nature-Based Solution (NBS): Carbon Sequestration

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-5263456/v1

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To prevent the worst impacts of climate change, Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs), by maintaining and creating Urban Green Infrastructures (UGIs), can be used. Urban agriculture, as a UGI, is widely accepted as an NBS by providing a wide range of ecosystem services (ES), including Food production, wildlife Habitat, a sense of place and Educational opportunities, Nitrogen fixation, Flood reduction, Improving water quality, Local climate regulation, and Carbon storage and sequestration. This study aimed to investigate the potential of carbon storage and sequestration ES by urban agriculture (croplands) in the Hamadan urban area. First, the UGI map was prepared, and agricultural lands were extracted. Then, a stratified random sampling was used (120 sampling points). Soil sampling (plot 1×1 m), at a depth of 0–30 cm, was conducted, dried (at 105 ° C/48 hours), and analyzed for total carbon content by dry combustion method (550°C/2 hours). Grass and litter samples were harvested (plot 1×1 m), oven-dried (at 65 ° C/48 hours), and heated (at 115°C/24 hours). The results showed that the average carbon sequestration potential by soil, grass cover, and litter was 104.88, 4.96, and 0.27 t/ha, respectively. Potato (181 t/ha) and corn (58.8 t/ha) cultivation had the highest and lowest soil carbon sequestration values, respectively. Also, Flax grass cover has the highest carbon sequestration potential (14.33 t/ha), and tomato plants as a grass cover have the lowest potential (0.3 t/ha). The highest potential of carbon sequestration from the point of view of total soil and grass cover is for potato, flax, garlic, vegetable, abandoned, pea, fallow, wheat, tomato, cucumber, rapeseed, and corn, respectively. Finally, it can be concluded that urban agriculture can be an NBS for providing carbon sequestration ES.

Carbon sequestration potential

urban cropland

NBS

Urban Green Infrastructures

Land use change, rapid increase in average temperatures, and greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere have significant effects on climate and can be a serious challenge about the amount and quality of human existence (Magazzino et al., 2023; Guo and Fang, 2021). To mitigate the most severe consequences of climate change, we'll need to diminish atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, one may decrease CO2 emissions and enhance carbon sequestration (Paustian et al., 2016). Therefore, cities need solutions to address and mitigate the present and prospective effects of climate change. In response to a wide range of social issues induced by climate change, Nature-Based Solutions (NBSs) are acknowledged as multifaceted and efficacious solutions for human well-being ( Rastkhadiv et al., 2024; Wellmann et al., 2023; Meerow Newell, 2017; Kabisch et al., 2016). NBSs, as solutions inspired by nature, provide economical strategies to enhance the adaptability and flexibility of urban environments while delivering human and ecological advantages (Dumitru and Wendling, 2021; Debele et al., 2019).

NBS was originally mentioned in Ecosystem Services (ES) in 2008 (Potschin et al., 2016; The World Bank, 2008) and introduced by IUCN to highlight the significance of conserving biodiversity, mitigating climate change, and adapting to its effects (MacKinnon et al., 2008; IUCN, 2009; Biodiversa, 2014). The NBS is regarded as a wide definition and was introduced to promote nature and provide solutions to the challenges of climate change mitigation. As a multifaceted term (Maes and Jacobs, 2017), it has developed to a great extent from the concepts or principles of sustainability, resilience, ecosystem management, ecosystem services, human-environment interactions, and green and blue infrastructures (MEA, 2005; Chen and Liu, 2014; European Commission, 2015; Cohen-Shacham et al., 2016). The NBS, as a nature-inspired solution, provides cost-effective ways to approach the adaptability and flexibility of cities while providing human and biological benefits. NBSs also help communities to address social, environmental, and economic issues via sustainable methods (Dumitru and Wendling, 2021; Debele et al., 2019).

Consequently, NBSs are perceived as activities that “seek to assist societies in addressing diverse environmental, social, and economic challenges in sustainable ways” (European Commission, 2015). Policymakers prioritize them to solve various social issues (Faivre et al., 2017) and environmental challenges including preventing natural disasters and mitigating climate change impacts (Reguero et al., 2023). So, NBSs are potential solutions for restoring, maintaining, and improving ecosystem services and social challenges that improve urban ecological, social, and economic resilience (Bianciardi & Cascini, 2023). Therefore, NBSs through maintaining and creating Urban Green Infrastructures (UGI) (Wellmann et al., 2023), including gardens, parks, street trees (Elmqvist et al., 2013; Riechers et al., 2016), and urban agriculture (Zhu et al., 2023; Kingsley et al., 2021; Artmann and Sartison, 2018) as a nature-based solution, represents a fundamental tool to solve urban challenges by providing Ecosystem Services (ES) (Bush and Doyon, 2019). Meanwhile, Urban agriculture is widely recognized as a Nature-Based Solution, offering an extensive array of ecosystem benefits (Eisenstein, 2020; Wilkerson et al., 2018) and is considered an efficient and cost-effective solution (Lafortezza et al., 2018).

The sustainability and resilience of urban environments depend on urban ecosystems' capacity to provide Provisioning, Regulating, Cultural, and Supporting services (Evans et al., 2022), and ESs supplied by urban agriculture are also included in these four categories (Newell et al., 2022; Sanyé-Mengual et al., 2020: Aerts et al., 2016). For Provisioning ES, these included Food production (Dorr et al., 2023; Fantini, 2023). For Supporting ES, these included Enhancing pollinator and wildlife Habitat (Bennett & Lovell, 2019; Lin et al., 2015). For Cultural ES, these included a sense of place and Educational opportunities (Ilieva et al., 2022). For Regulating ES, these included Nitrogen fixation (Clinton et al., 2018), Food production and Improving water quality (Church et al., 2021; Deksissa et al., 2021; Clinton et al., 2018), Air quality improvement (Chatterjee et al., 2020), Local climate regulation and urban heat islands reduction (Rahimi and Nobar, 2023; Mancebo, 2018), and also carbon storage and sequestration (Thornbush, 2015; Lwasa et al., 2015; Kulak et al., 2013).

Urban agriculture has the capacity to decrease carbon emissions by reducing the amount of carbon in two ways, the "food mile" or reducing carbon footprint by reducing the distance from food production to consumption (Newell et al., 2022; Mok et al., 2014; Weber and Matthews, 2008). In addition, the potential of Carbon storage and sequestration is considered one of the significant regulating services and also NBSs. Quantifying and estimating the amount of sequestered carbon is a suitable tool to perform management strategies to reduce greenhouse gases (Raymond et al., 2023; YU et al., 2022; Gharibi et al., 2021) and climate change and global warming reductions require paying attention to these issues (Wu et al., 2021).

One of the underdeveloped fields of research in urban agriculture is the quantification of carbon absorption potential (Kulack and Vasquez, 2012). This study aims to investigate the carbon storage and sequestration ES in an urban area, based on field and laboratory work, that is intended to enhance the provisioning of ESs as an NBS to regulate the climate at the local scale. In this study, the carbon sequestration capability of cropland and atmospheric CO2 are both considered, including three carbon sources: soil, grass cover, and litter and dead organic matter, are involved, to evaluate the carbon quantity of crops more fully and accurately. The carbon sequestration potential of agriculture in the Hamadan urban area is projected for 2022. In particular, the following research questions have been examined: (1) Which crop has the most carbon sequestration potential? (2) Is there a substantial correlation between the carbon absorbed in the soil and the grass cover of certain crops?

2.1. Description of the study area

The city of Hamadan (74.22 km²) as the study area, is situated in western Iran (Latitude: 23° 59´ to 25° 45´ N; 47° 34´ to 49° 36´ E). Agricultural areas, gardens, vacant lands, parks, and urban trees make up Hamadan's UGIs, which make up 38% of the city's total area (17.84%, 10.36%, 3.75%, 3.80%, and 2.27%, respectively) (Gharibi and Shayesteh, 2024). Due to its geographic location and climate, Hamadan is a key hub for agriculture, growing a wide variety of crops, including wheat, barley, potatoes, and grapes; and has a significant carbon reduction capacity. Studies such as Garibi et al., (2024) indicated that the capacity for carbon storage and sequestration in Hamadan's UGSs is estimated to be 411,467 tons. Soil (312,047 tons), tree cover (69,293 tons), shrubs (20,973 tons), grass covers (8,383 tons), and litters (771 tons) all contribute to this total. A detailed assessment of the impact of these crops on carbon sequestration can provide valuable insights for environmental policy-making and sustainable agricultural practices. According to Fig. 1, Hamadan has 4 districts and 76 neighborhoods.

Based on the detailed plan map of Hamedan City and Gharibi et al., (2021), the area of UGIs in the Hamadan urban area, consisting of gardens, parks, trees, agricultural lands, and vacant lands, is shown in the table (1).

Table 1

Percentage of total UGI in Hamadan urban area (2021)
Urban area (ha)	Green infrastructure (GI) classes	GI area (ha)	% (of total GIs)	% (of total city area)
7422	Urban agricultural lands	1324.20	46.92	17.84
	Gardens	769.24	27.25	10.36
	Parks	282.36	10	3.80
	Vacant lands	278.37	9.86	3.75
	trees	168.31	5.96	2.27
	Total	2822.48	100	38.03

2.2. Determining the urban agricultural calendar and sampling time

The map of urban agriculture lands was prepared by combining the three classification methods of RF, NDVI, and Google Earth images as well as field studies. Based on the obtained data from the Agriculture Jihad Organization of Hamadan Province in 2022, Crop Calendars for Hamadan, the distribution of a questionnaire to the farmers as well as fieldwork, the largest Hamadan urban area crops in terms of total production are Garlic (Allium sativum), Wheat (Triticum), Rapeseed (Brassica napus), Potato (Solanum tuberosum), Vegetables, Cucumber (Cucumis sativus), Flax (Linum Usitatissimum), Peas), Pisum Sativum, Corn (Zea mays), Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), and many parts are Grass fallow and Abandoned agricultural lands. Then, soils and crops were sampled and analyzed between May and September 2022.

2.3. Sampling of soils and crops in the field

First, the UGI map was prepared using the Terra Incognita with high-resolution images (5×5 m). Then, the agricultural lands were extracted and considered as study units. A systematic random sampling method (Nowak et al., 2008) was employed for measuring the carbon stocks of agricultural products. Sampling points (120 points) were randomly selected on the agricultural land map. Figure 1 shows the geographical distribution of point observations across the study area. A 1x1m plot was centered on each sampling point on the ground. At the center of each plot, soil samples were taken at a depth of 15–30 cm (Gharibi and Shayesteh, 2024; Novara et al., 2017), transferred to the laboratory, dried at 105 ° C for 48 hours (Gharibi and Shayesteh, 2024; Buragienė et al., 2019; Feyisa et al., 2017). The total carbon content was analyzed using the dry combustion method (550°C for 2 hours) (Gharibi and Shayesteh, 2024; Solgi et al., 2020). Then, Eq. (1) was used to calculate the total amount of organic carbon in the soil (Gharibi and Shayesteh, 2024; Lemma et al., 2006). Here, Cs is the soil organic carbon (SOC) (t/ha), OC is the soil sample’s organic carbon (%), Bd is the specific soil gravity (g /cm3), e is the soil depth (0.3 m),

$$\:{\text{C}}_{\text{S}}=100\text{*}\text{O}\text{C}\left(\text{%}\right)\text{*}\text{B}\text{d}\text{*}\text{e}$$

Grass samples were taken from each 1×1m cultivated plot, oven-dried for 48 hours at 65°C, and then heated for 24 hours at 115°C (Gharibi and Shayesteh, 2024; Kapoor et al., 2019). Using Eq. 2, crop biomass organic matter was calculated and the carbon stock (CLHG) was estimated (Hernandez et al., 2004). here; CLHG: herbaceous organic carbon stock (g/m2); OC: organic carbon in the sample (%). Carbon storage in litters (Cl) was estimated using Eq. (3).

C_LHG = 0.50 × B (Biomass total)	(2)
Cl = 0.55 OC (Biomass total)	(3)

The total carbon storage was multiplied by 3.67 (Frey, 2018) to estimate the potential for atmospheric CO₂ sequestration (Gharibi and Shayesteh, 2024)

In the study area, winter wheat is planted in autumn, dormant during cold periods, and harvested in the summer of next year. Therefore, the peak of wheat greenness emerged around May. At the end of June, the land area is covered by golden wheat, and it is ready to be harvested, so in August, the whole wheat has been harvested and the dead leaves are on the ground. The initial land preparation aims at preparing the land for cultivation of the corn and potato in the spring (May) and Hamadan city, as a cold and mountainous climate, the growth of these products peaks in late July. Flax seed is planted in May, its green-up period is three months, and the peak growth is in late July. The cultivation of tomato, cucumber, and vegetable crops starts at the beginning of June and reaches its peak growth at the end of July, and harvest begins in August. The peak greenness of alfalfa is in May and then harvested, and then it reaches peak growth again in late July. The grass cover disappears with the heat of August. In Hamedan, garlic cultivation starts at the end of October, remains in winter, and its harvest continues from the end of July (fresh garlic) to the middle of August (dry garlic) when fresh garlic has the peak greenness. A part of the urban agricultural plots and their digitization to enter the ArcMap environment are shown (Fig. 2).

Based on the results, the average potential of carbon sequestration by soil, grass cover, and litter was estimated as 104.88, 4.96, and 0.27 tons per hectare, respectively (Fig. 3). The two variables of soil and grass cover organic carbon do not significantly correlate, according to the Pearson correlation test (the significance level obtained is higher than the assumed value of 0.05). Furthermore, soil and litter organic carbon have a significant but weak correlation.

According to the results of the agricultural calendar of Hamadan (2022), around 17.84% of the urban area (1324.20 he) is equivalent to the urban agriculture infrastructure (Table 1), which can sequester about 145807 tons of carbon in total (138886 tons by soil, 6567 tons by grass cover and 362 tons by litter). The result showed that land cultivated with potatoes (181 t/ha) and corn (58.8 t/ha) had the highest and lowest soil carbon sequestration values, respectively. Also, Flax grass cover has the highest carbon sequestration potential (14.33 t/ha), and tomato plants as a grass cover have the lowest potential (0.3 t/ha). Figure (4) shows the carbon sequestration rate by soil and grass cover in different crop species.

Because carbon (C) is stored and oxygen (O2) is released into space, the mass of CO₂ that has been extracted from the atmosphere is larger than the mass of C alone. Therefore, the amount of CO₂ sequestered by urban agriculture infrastructure by soil, grass cover, and litter is estimated to be 535140 tons of CO₂.

Like any other ecosystem, cities provide benefits to their citizens and society (Haase et al., 2014). Enhancing the standard of living in urban areas depends on the provided ESs by the urban green and blue infrastructure (Gonzalez-Oreja et al., 2020). Even if citizens still depend on global ESs for their survival, their quality of life is improved by some locally provided ESs (Bolund and Hunhammar, 1999). The local supply of ESs can help meet a variety of demands, including flood protection, reduction of air pollution, climate change, noise reduction, and healthy lifestyles (e.g., recreational opportunities) (Haase et al., 2014). On the other hand, UGIs provide many ESs. Wang et al. have reported 28 different types of ESs including food production by UGIs. Therefore, urban agriculture as one of the main UGIs is important because food production ES has not been neglected (Evans et al., 2022).

Urban agriculture can reduce dependence on imports, create job opportunities, and create a more sustainable environment, apart from food production for local communities (Rao et al., 2022), and act as a strategic solution for their food security, which was very tangible during the Covid-19 pandemic (Khan et al., 2020; Pulighe and Lupia, 2020). Urban agriculture reduces reliance on imports, generates job opportunities, and improves the sustainability of the environment in addition to providing food production for local communities, (Rao et al., 2022). It also acts as a strategic solution for local communities' food security, which was critical during the Covid-19 pandemic (Khan et al., 2020; Pulighe and Lupia, 2020). It also increases urban biodiversity and contributes to the urban nature and ecological and social processes of the city such as cultural and recreational resources (Lin et al., 2017). Although urban agriculture increases the UGI per capita (Brown et al., 2012), it is considered a supplement for urban parks (Contesse et al., 2018). Based on this, it can be said that urban agriculture as an NBS, acts as a supplement for urban parks to carbon sequestration and storage service. Carbon storage and sequestration potential is considered one of the most critical ESs, and quantifying and estimating the amount of this service by soil, as the most important carbon reserves in UGIs, including urban agricultural lands, can be a suitable method to carry out management strategies to reduce greenhouse gases on a local scale.

In the studies conducted by Lal et al. (2016), Altieri and Nicholls (2017), and Mathew et al. (2020), their results indicated that the transfer of atmospheric carbon to the soil to increase the soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks -also known as soil carbon sequestration- will have benefits such as reducing global warming, reducing climate change, and improving soil fertility. Therefore, in this paper, the amount of carbon sequestration service provided by urban agricultural lands was investigated as an NBS approach. Since natural main carbon sinks are soil (Tao et al., 2019; Minasny et al., 2017; Paustian et al., 2016) and plants (Baes et al., 1977), the carbon sequestration potential of soil, grass cover, and litter in croplands are estimated to be 104.88, 4.96, and 0.27 t/ha, respectively. The results of the current research have shown that soil has great potential for mitigating carbon emissions which are significantly higher than crops (investigated in this research). In this regard, the results of Raisi et al. (2018) confirm that the most carbon sequestration occurs in the soil, grass cover, and litter, respectively. Similar to the results of Malhi et al. (1999), 48% of the carbon is stored as soil organic matter, and 16% as living biomass.

According to Kopittke et al. (2019), the global carbon cycle is significantly influenced by soil. soil may be able to store carbon at a higher rate than plants. Therefore, sustainable soil carbon sequestration practices need to be implemented to mitigate climate change (Amelung et al., 2020). As Urban agricultural lands are widely recognized as the primary carbon sink and play an important role in the global carbon balance (Qin et al., 2013; Schlesinger, 1999). Up to 1.2 Pg/y of annual carbon emissions are expected to be offset by global agricultural carbon sequestration (Lal, 2004). A yearly increase of 0.4% in agricultural soil carbon storage can reduce climate change, according to the "4 per 1000" project, which the French government launched during the COP21 climate summit (Cornelia et al., 2018).

Preserving and enhancing SOC, which constitutes more than 60% of the carbon reservoir in agricultural lands worldwide, can significantly increase adaptation to climate change (Lal, 2004). Nonetheless, there are still a lot of conflicting results on the possible storage capacity of C in soil, particularly throughout various parts of the globe. SOC stocks are impacted by both human and environmental factors, including soil type, climate, land use, and land management (Fuss et al., 2018). However, in the meantime, the effect of soil alone cannot be considered as a sink or pool for carbon sequestration, it should be acknowledged that crops, while protecting and improving the soil, strengthen the soil structure, and add organic matter to it, and finally It enhances the process of carbon sequestration. Thus, according to Fig. 3, the amount of soil carbon sequestration in crops such as potato, flax, and garlic is higher than in other crops, respectively. Many studies (Smith, 2004; Tao et al., 2019; Tiefenbacher et al., 2021; Zuo et al., 2023) have discussed the carbon sequestration potential in the cropland soils and their results showed the ability and high potential of soils in carbon sequestration and storage. Hastuti et al. (2022) by studying carbon sequestration in urban agriculture, between agricultural and non-agricultural lands, reached the results that the potential of carbon sequestration in urban agricultural land is greater than in non-agricultural land. As a result, it can be stated that urban agriculture crops improve soil structure to increase carbon sequestration potential.

The results of the Pearson correlation test indicate that there is no significant correlation between soil and grass cover organic carbon (the significance level obtained is substantially greater than the predicted value of 0.05). Also, soil and litter organic carbon have a significant but weak correlation. Soil and litter organic carbon and organic carbon have a weak one-way relationship. It was found that the increase of litter organic carbon significantly increased the SOC. Because the litter adds organic matter to the soil by penetrating and decomposing process, and the speed of their decomposition in the soil is higher than on the surface. Therefore, there is a weak correlation between these two variables that is not significant.

Based on the agricultural calendar of Hamedan (2022), 17.84% of the urban has been allocated to urban agriculture, which can sequester 145807 tons of carbon. In the research by Yu et al. (2022) to investigate the performance of net carbon sequestration in Cropland in China, they reached the results that the net carbon sequestration was 3.837 t/ ha, of which the amount of carbon sequestration and emission was 6.343 and 2.506 tons, respectively. The highest amount of crops carbon sequestration is estimated for Flax species (14.33 t/ha), Vegetables (14.22 t/ha), Wheat (10.68 t/ha), Abandoned (6.15 t/ha), Corn (3.9 t/ha), Potatoes (2.5 t/ha), Cucumbers (2.4 t/ha), Peas (1.05 t/ha), Garlic (1 t/ha), Rapeseed (0.84 t/ha), Fallow (0.52 t/ha), and Tomatoes (0.25 t/ha), respectively. The amount of carbon sequestration for corn varied from 10.97 to 13.26 based on the findings of Hastuti et al. (2022). Also, the Potato (181 t/ha) and Corn (58.8 t/ha) croplands had the highest and lowest soil carbon sequestration values, respectively. In this study, the carbon sequestration potential of vegetables and their soil has been calculated as 14.2 and 93.8 tons per hectare, respectively, which has a high value but in another study, the amount of carbon sequestration in urban agricultural land indicated that vegetables compared to food crops have a smaller value in carbon storage and sequestration. So, vegetable products can store carbon from 4.22 t/ha to 7.53 t/ha. Also, Tomatoes can store 1.17–1.7 t/ha (Hastuti et al., 2022), which is more than the present study (0.3 t/ha). In another study, on average, crops absorbed 4.5 (Mg C ha^− 1 y ^− 1), ranging from 1.7 (Mg C ha^− 1 y ^− 1)/ for barley to 5.2 (Mg C ha^− 1 y ^− 1) for corn (Mathew et al., 2020).

The highest potential of carbon sequestration from the point of view of total soil and grass cover is for potato, flax, garlic, vegetable, abandoned, pea, fallow, wheat, tomato, cucumber, rapeseed, and corn, respectively. Potatoes are highly sensitive to drought and have a high water requirement, especially from the day of planting to 10 days before harvesting. Therefore, potatoes are not suitable for the region due to dehydration. However, rapeseed plants are low water requirement plants, and due to the water crisis all over the world and especially in Hamedan city, implementation of high-efficiency cropland irrigation water management is a requirement. Therefore, planting rapeseed can be suitable according to the climatic conditions of the Hamadan urban area (dry), water consumption, and providing carbon sequestration service, along with other crops. Finally, it can be concluded that urban agriculture can be an NBS for providing carbon sequestration ESs. As Xie et al. (2018) stated, studying agricultural land's net carbon sequestration performance can be advantageous, as it provides a reference for balancing low carbon transfer and food security.

Declaration of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process

The authors of this paper used ChatGPT and Grammarly to fix any grammatical mistakes in the text. The writers assumed full responsibility for the publication's content after using these services, and they reviewed and made any necessary changes.

Funding Declaration

This research received no specific grant.

Author Contribution declaration

Shiva Gharibi, Kamran Shayesteh, and Arman Rastkhadiv handled the material preparation, data collecting, and analysis. Arman Rastkhadiv wrote the original draft of the manuscript, while the other authors provided feedback on earlier drafts. Each author contributed to the final manuscript and discussed the findings.

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Ecosystem Service Delivery by Urban Agriculture as a Nature-Based Solution (NBS): Carbon Sequestration

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1. Introduction

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Description of the study area

2.2. Determining the urban agricultural calendar and sampling time

2.3. Sampling of soils and crops in the field

3. Result

4. Discussion and Conclution

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