Document: JON-3-63-8

Urban carbon: Sources, sinks, and people in Baltimore.

SMITH, J.* ^1,2, S.TAPICKETT ¹ and P.MGROFFMAN ¹

Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Box AB, Millbrook, NY 12545 ¹
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903 ²

Abstract:
Carbon budgets are important in understanding the structure and function of ecosystems. However, even though urbanization and suburbanization are major components of global change, the role of urban ecosystems as sources and sinks for carbon is unknown. The ecological, social, and economic drivers of carbon flow in urban areas are also unknown. Here, we present carbon budgets for four small watersheds within the Baltimore Ecosystem Study LTER site. Three of the small watersheds lie along an urban-rural gradient from an inner-city residential neighborhood to a new suburban development on former agricultural land. A fourth, forested watershed acted as a reference. Aerial photo interpretation was used to delineate patches of land-use and land-cover. Carbon pools and fluxes were then calculated for soil, vegetation, and human components in each patch and totaled for each watershed. Between watershed comparisons revealed a pattern of increasing importance of the human component as urbanization proceeds. Human pools were lowest in the forested reference watershed and highest in the inner-city watershed. Human annual flux was lowest in the forested reference watershed but began to predominate budgets in the suburban watershed. The inner-city watershed's budget consisted almost entirely of flux from humans.

Keywords: Baltimore Ecosystem Study, carbon, humans, urban ecosystem, urban-rural gradient

This abstract is being presented at: 8:15 AM in session:
Oral Session #25: Organic Matter Dynamics in Ecosystems.