Estimating carbon storage and sequestration in peri-urban forests under urban growth uncertainty: The Mexico City case

Source abstract

Urbanization is a leading driver of land-use change globally. Its rapid expansion into rural-urban transition zones has intensified peri-urbanization. Peri-urban areas offer essential ecosystem services such as carbon (C) storage and sequestration. However, these transitional landscapes are increasingly threatened by unregulated urban expansion. In rapidly growing megacities like Mexico City, weak land-use governance has accelerated urban sprawl into peri-urban forests threatening C storage and sequestration. In this study we employed an exploratory modeling approach that couples SLEUTH and InVEST to quantify the impacts of three alternative urban growth scenarios (unrestricted “U”, business-as-usual “B”, and restricted “R”) on peri-urban C storage and sequestration in Mexico City. The results identified highly valuable sites, projected that urbanization will transform 29–38% of the peri-urban forest, and estimated that carbon storage will decline between 19–29% by 2060". Agricultural lands, broadleaf and mixed forests are identified as the most vulnerable land cover types, with significant carbon losses projected between 2030 and 2050. In coniferous forests, the rate of C reduction accelerated after 2050, while changes in grasslands were negligible throughout the study periods. These findings underscore the urgent need to enforce land-use restrictions to protect the C sequestration capacity of peri-urban forests and support Mexico City’s efforts to meet its climate commitments. The exploratory modelling approach further illustrates the utility of scenario-based analysis for supporting policy decisions under conditions of urban growth uncertainty, particularly in data-limited contexts characteristic of many countries of the Global South.