Forest ecosystem services: Carbon and air quality

Abstract

Forests provide various ecosystem services related to air quality that can provide substantial value to society. Through tree growth and alteration of their local environment, trees and forests both directly and indirectly affect air quality. Though forests affect air quality in numerous ways, this chapter will focus on five main ecosystem services or disservices related to air quality that have the potential to be estimated for forest stands:

(1) Air pollution removal and its effect on air
pollution concentrations,
(2) Volatile organic compound emissions,
(3) Pollen emissions,
(4) Carbon sequestration, and
(5) Air temperature reduction.

The objectives of this chapter are to:

(1) Provide a background on how forests influence each of the
above ecosystem services,
(2) Recommend methods on how to quantify the magnitude of
these ecosystem services, and
(3) Review new approaches in assessing the value associated
with these ecosystem services.

Parent Publication

• Trees at work: economic accounting for forest ecosystem services in the U.S. South

Citation

Nowak, David J.; Poudyal, Neelam C.; McNulty, Steve G. 2017. Forest ecosystem services: Carbon and air quality. In: Trees at work: economic accounting for forest ecosystem services in the U.S. South. General Technical Report SRS-226. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station.