Comprehensive study on the amount of CO₂ absorbed by vegetation: A case study in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam

¹ Hochiminh City University of Natural Resources and Environment (HCMUMRE), Vietnam
² Southern Education Development Center, Office of Ministry of Education and Training, Vietnam.
³ Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT), Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

^* Corresponding author: httvan@hcmunre.edu.vn

Abstract

The city Ho Chi Minh (HCMC) is one of the largest cities in Vietnam with the most dramatically economic development rate. Along with the economic development, the urbanization process in this city is also taking place very fastly. Due to the rapid urbanization and development, the emission rate from the industry and transportation leads to the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) which has been worsening the climate change. Protecting forests and conducting afforestation so that CO₂ is transformed to nutrition through photosynthetic conversion is one of the most effective ways to mitigate the effects of climate change. As a result, the accumulation of CO₂ emissions has become a global concern. Vegetation absorbs carbon dioxide, helps to conserve the environment, produces oxygen, reduces noise, and helps to stabilize subsurface water. This paper highlights the results of ENVI software which was used to interpret remote sensing images and Arcgis to evaluate the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed by vegetation in each administrative unit: district in HCMC and ward. According to the obtained results, the amount of CO₂ absorbed in urban districts “District 1”, “District 3”, “District 4”, “District 5”, “Phu Nhuan District” is immensely low due to the high population density in the center of city. The population is mainly concentrated in the center districts but land area for vegetation is low. Regarding the suburban area, with mangrove forests, Can Gio District has the highest amount of CO₂ absorbed of 35,894.075 tons/day and followed by Cu Chi District with 21,548.48 tons/day. It can be indicated that Can Gio and Cu Chi districts improtantly function like the greenhouse gas sinks for the whole HCMC. The success of this study could contribute to climate change mitigation and support in urban and land planning, as well as resettlement policies. Aside from that, CO₂ emission and absorption assessment and evaluation in large–scale cities like HCMC has become a crucial, urgent, and practical issue nowadays.