Assessing Ecosystem Services and Economic Valuation of Urban Trees
Combining Field Data and i-Tree Canopy in Hamadan City
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22240201 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Shiva Gharibi (0000-0002-1877-1204, University of Kurdistan, corresponding author), Kamran Shayesteh (0000-0002-8451-058X, Malayer University), Arman Rastkhadiv (0000-0003-4714-3538, Tarbiat Modares University) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Pages | 101380 |
| Publication date | 2026-07-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Trees Forests and People (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2666-7193 • E-ISSN: 2666-7193 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.tfp.2026.101380 |
| OpenAlex | W7167218837 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 44 |
As a key component of nature-based solutions, urban trees play a vital role in enhancing ecosystem services for urban carbon storage. The i-Tree model is one of the most widely used tools for modeling and economically valuing urban carbon storage ecosystem services. This study compared and evaluated two for quantifying urban tree carbon storage in Hamadan: the i-Tree Canopy tool and field data. The first method used 400 random points within the study area, classifying each as either tree or non-tree cover. i-Tree generates outputs including the percentage of cover class, the amount of stored carbon, annual sequestration, and air pollutant removal. In the second approach, Hamadan's canopy cover was extracted from Google Earth images. During fieldwork, 800 trees were randomly selected, and canopy diameter and allometric data were collected. The average canopy cover of the 800 surveyed trees was used to estimate the average canopy area per tree. Dividing the total urban canopy area by this average provided an estimate of the total number of urban trees. Allometric equations were used to calculate the stored carbon for each tree species. Multiplying this by the canopy area (in square meters) yielded the stored carbon in kg C/m2, which was then valued based on the global carbon market price. According to i-Tree results, trees in the study area annually sequester approximately 2.54 kt of carbon from the atmosphere and store it in their biomass. In addition to annual carbon sequestration, the trees have cumulatively stored 63.91 kt of carbon in their biomass (equivalent to 234.33 kt of CO2). The total carbon stored by urban trees in the field was 58.82 kt (equivalent to 215.87 kt of CO2). The consistency analysis revealed an absolute difference of 5.09 kt C and a relative difference of approximately 8.3%, indicating a high degree of similarity between the estimates produced by the two independent approaches. The research findings help improve the accuracy of ecosystem service assessment in developing cities and provide a scientific basis for urban planning, climate policy, and the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals
Canopy · Ecosystem · Ecosystem services · Field (mathematics) · Valuation (finance) · Land Use and Ecosystem Services · Urban Agriculture and Sustainability · Urban Green Space and Health
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| Highly cited | No |
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