QUANTIFYING THE CARBON STORAGE CAPACITY AND ITS SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION PATTERNS OF GREEN SPACES IN A METROPOLITAN AREA: A CASE STUDY OF SEOUL,SOUTH KOREA

As a significant habitat type in cities, green spaces can provide various ecosystem services. Among them, the carbon storage of green spaces would effectively alleviate greenhouse effect, which is particularly important under the global warming. Due to difficulities in accessing high-resolution spatial data, previous research has summarized green spaces into different land use types to calculate carbon storage. However, since different vegetation communities have different characteristics, carbon storage capacities of green spaces vary. Focusing on the Seoul City, South Korea, this research aims at exploring the carbon storage capacities of varied green spaces and its distribution patterns. Based on the high-resolution habitat data of Seoul City in 2005 and 2015, the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model is used to estimate and visualize the carbon storage capacities of 17 types of green spaces to reveal the distribution patterns of carbon storage of different communities in the city’s green spaces. This study not only provides a scientific basis for ecological protection practices and sustainable land planning and management in Seoul and other similar regions, but also offers a reference for urban ecosystem service assessment and green space renewal strategy development in China.