The Role of Urban Forest Play,Mitigating the Impacts of Climate Change (Research Paper Sample)

The Role the Urban Forest Play in Mitigating the Impacts of Climate Change: Case Study of Minneapolis
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The Role the Urban Forest Play in Mitigating the Impacts of Climate Change: Case Study of Minneapolis
Abstract
The literature review aims to elaborate on the impacts of urban forests in alleviating the impacts of climate change. The articles used in the literature review were carefully selected based on the criteria for the identification of credible scholarly articles. Once the appropriate articles were identified, a thorough narrative review was undertaken to derive meaning from the articles. The literature review showed that urban forests are impactful for the mitigation of climate change. One of the major environmental concerns today is the possibility of global climate change caused by rising CO2 concentrations, and the influence of land-based vegetation management has earned attention as a way of curbing carbon emissions as well as climate change. In this research, tree dimensions, as well as plant species composition assessments, as well as plant species composition assessments, were employed to estimate the prospects of urban ecosystems in functioning as carbon sinks and minimizing climate change through carbon assimilation and storage, as well as the system's potential to enhance biodiversity conservation using Minneapolis as a case study. Based on tree diameters, biomass/carbon models for trees were created and employed in the prediction of biomass/carbon storage. The literature review indicated that urban forests play a significant role in minimizing the impacts of climate change as well as adaptation. They produce usable goods, capture carbon and save energy, improve community resilience, and allow cities to adjust to climate and weather changes. The urban forests contribute to the management of the causes and consequences of climate-related threats. Urban forests help to mitigate climate change by absorbing greenhouse gases, protecting coastal communities from extreme weather events and sea-level rise, and regulating the flow of water. Migrating plant and animal species can use urban forests to reach buoyant habitats.
Keywords: Climate Change, biodiversity, Carbon emissions, Ecosystems
Introduction
The urban environment raises significant concerns about global climate change. Cities are home to more than half of the global population. But since urban areas are denser and pedestrian-friendly, urban per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are often significantly lower compared to the average per capita emissions for the regions of the world in which they are situated (Brandt et al., 2019). Metropolitan areas have more likelihood of having adequate emergency services than non-urban areas, and thus may have better equipment for providing critical assistance to inhabitants in the occurrence of climate-related tension and events, for instance, heatwaves, storm surges, downpours as well as disease outbreaks. Cities, however, remain significant contributors to GHG emissions.
Climate change adaptation and mitigation rely heavily on urban forests. Active preservation of a community's forestry resources can increase local climate resilience while also making communities more feasible as well as favorable to live in. Climate change adaptation and mitigation rely heavily on urban forests (Weissert, Salmond, &Schwendenmann, 2014). Active preservation of a community's forest management assets can increase the local adaptation strategies whilst still making communities more viable and favorable to live in. The term "urban forest" makes reference to all trees in a densely populated area, including those in parks, on streets, and on personal property (Brandt et al., 2019). Despite the fact that the structure, well-being, age, extent, as well as expenditures of urban forests vary greatly between cities, all urban forests provide some prevalent environmental, financial, and social benefits.
The trees of the city are referred to as the urban forest. In several ways, urban forests vary considerably from countryside forests. For starters, urban forests have a variety of structures. Urban trees can be discovered in stands, similar to those found in parks, in lines together across streets, or as single trees, and they can be close to infrastructure and/or employees. They can be vestiges of native forests or intentionally planted. They differ in structure, age, general health, and patterns of ownership (Brandt et al., 2019). Furthermore, urban trees are connected with human operations as well as infrastructure. Furthermore, urban forests have such a unique dynamic due to the interaction of natural advancement systems and human processes that affect their development, all of which work at different rates. The valuation of urban forests is done economically, socially, and environmentally.
By reducing GHG emissions, urban forests help to mitigate climate change. In the United States, for instance, urban forests encapsulate approximately 23 million tons of carbon per year (Baró at al., 2019). The shading of buildings by trees helps in minimizing energy consumption and, as a result, carbon emissions. Furthermore, urban trees contribute to the regulation of the metropolitan microclimate, thereby supplementing or mitigating climatic change (Escobedo, Kroeger, & Wagner, 2011). This situation is accomplished by either lowering solar reflectance or offering shade and cover, or by controlling the hydrologic cycle of cities, which influences the microclimate of urban areas. With the amortization of canopy leaf area and trees, as well as the emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), urban forests play a part in GHG emissions. The sustenance of urban forests could also help, relying on their carbon intensity and associated emissions.
The decrement of GHG emissions is referred to as climate mitigation. As previously stated, urban forests alleviate GHG emissions by absorbing carbon originating from the atmosphere and lowering energy consumption. Carbon storage through urban trees, on the other hand, does not make a substantial contribution to reducing worldwide, national, or perhaps even local emissions. Nevertheless, this is no insignificant way of contributing. By raising the urban canopy cover, urban forest management to increase carbon capture. Trees that are larger and younger capture more carbon, and the urban forest might be adjusted to try to emulate this growth as well as age structure. Furthermore, species selection can increase carbon capture. The creation of a carbon-species-selection matrix is critical for this method.
Literature Review
Like any other forests, urban forests mitigate the impacts of climate change by capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide during photosynthesis and by manipulating energy needs for heating and cooling buildings. As it is all known, trees typically not only reduce cooling costs, but can increase or decrease winter heating use depending on their location. The urban forests have an important role to play in changing mitigation and adaptation.With the increasing concern about the rise in the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and its implications on global climate, terrestrial ecosystem management has been looked upon as a potential way for mitigating carbon emission (Malhi et al., 2020). The objective of this literature review is to show the roles the urban forest play in mitigating the impacts of climate change in Minneapolis.
Urban forests are very beneficial to the environment. They provide usable goods, they capture carbon and are energy saving, they increase community resilience and enable cities to adopt to climate and weather changes. The urban forests help to control the causes and consequences of climate related threats. In mitigating climate change, urban forests absorb greenhouse gases, protect coastal communities from extreme events and sea level rise and also regulate water flow. Urban forests as well provide migrating plant and animal species routes to buoyant habitats.
Furthermore, when managed well, urban forests can store large amount of carbon. Therefore, people should continue encouraging one another more on tree planting in urban ecosystems for the mitigation of carbon. It is majorly because the world community is turning to terrestrial vegetation as a means of mitigating Carbon (IV) Oxide emissions. For many centuries, trees have been planted in urban areas. However, only little attention is paid on the important roles that they play. It is difficult to measure their environmental contribution and other factors that are equally important especially in terms of reducing air pollution which is the carbon dioxide gas emission. In Minneapolis, the practice of urban forestry is on the rise and it takes many different forms (Anjali et al., 2020). Most of the trees that have been planted have been for amenity or ornamental purposes or also around property boundaries, along streets, shade around houses or even for economic value to some extent.
In continuation, there may be cheaper opportunities which can be used to reduce the current carbon dioxide gas emission. One of these means is through forest management activities whereby these projects have more additional environmental benefits through the protection of watersheds and biological diversity among others. Furthermore, urban forestry projects could offer very attractive opportunities for providing carbon benefits if they are integrated with the cultural, social and developmental needs (Moomaw et al., 2020). However, this will be more effective in the short-term while other en...