Determining carbon storage content at different pools under various land uses in Miandoab region using remotely-sensed data and InVEST model

Ecological spaces play a crucial role in addressing climate change and global warming with focusing on storing and capturing CO2 from atmosphere. Consequently, quantifying and monitoring carbon storage content is the main step to toward achieving sustainable development goals. The main objective of this study is to develop a precise model for calculating carbon storage content at four pools i.e., aboveground carbon (AGC), belowground carbon (BGC), soil organic carbon (SOC) and dead organic carbon (DOC) under different land uses. For this, a site with an area extent about 243204 ha was selected from Miandoab region (West Azerbaijan Province) by the fact that it represents various land uses. Since application of integrated remotely-sensed data and novel technologies facilitates predictions as well as increases the modeling accuracy, the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform and the InVEST model were implemented in preparing land use/land cover (LULC) maps and then carbon storage content. The prediction for 2023 showed that the total carbon storage in the aforementioned region would be approximately 11.52 × 106 ton. In addition, the detailed evaluations illustrated that the highest carbon storage content related to SOC and AGC as expected. A possible reason is that living mass is located on the surface. In terms of different land-uses without paying attention to their areas in themselves, the highest carbon storage content was for pasture, followed by tree cover, agriculture, urban area, water bodies and barren. Finally, it is concluded that applying the respective remote sensing data integrating with a suitable technique uncovers the impact of LULC changes on carbon storage with success.