Traffic CO₂ Emissions and Roadside-Tree Carbon Sequestration along Pemuda Road in Surabaya, Indonesia
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51278/bce.v6i3.2909Keywords:
Transportation Emissions, Carbon Balance, Urban Vegetation, Low-Carbon Development, SurabayaAbstract
Urban transportation is a major contributor to carbon emissions in high-mobility downtown corridors, while roadside vegetation is often expected to offset part of these emissions. Previous studies have compared transportation emissions with vegetation-based carbon offsets, but evidence remains limited for individual downtown road corridors using comparable annualised emission and sequestration measures. This study assesses the carbon balance along a 1.5-km segment of Pemuda Road in Surabaya by estimating annualised motor-vehicle CO₂ emissions and the carbon stock and annual sequestration of existing roadside vegetation. A 16-hour manual traffic count was conducted on 5 May 2023, and a roadside-vegetation survey conducted on 11 May 2026 identified 35 trees for aboveground-biomass estimation. The quantitative analysis integrates traffic counting, Vehicle Kilometres Travelled, vehicle emission factors, allometric biomass estimation, carbon-stock estimation, and scenario-based annual sequestration. The results show that motor vehicles generate 2,773.61 tonnes of CO₂ per year, while the 35 existing roadside trees store 85.77 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent. Under the main sequestration-to-storage scenario of 4.0%, annual vegetation sequestration is estimated at 3.43 tonnes of CO₂ per year, resulting in a net carbon deficit of 2,770.18 tonnes of CO₂ per year and a vegetation offset fraction of 0.124%. Sensitivity analysis confirms that the vegetation offset fraction remains below 0.2% across the tested scenarios. These findings demonstrate that roadside vegetation provides only a limited offset and should be positioned as a complementary mitigation strategy alongside public transport improvement, private-vehicle management, active mobility, and integrated low-carbon land-use planning.
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