Urbanisation, Tree Species Diversity, Carbon Stocks and Ecosystem Services in Developing Cities in Sub–Saharan Africa: A Critical Review

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🔬研究者:Highlights the need for integrated urban ecology frameworks combining carbon accounting, biodiversity, and ecosystem services in data-scarce regions.

🏢実務担当者:Provides insights for urban planners and sustainability teams on the importance of comprehensive carbon inventories and biodiversity assessments in green space projects.

🏛政策担当者:Emphasizes the urgency of evidence-based urban planning that integrates carbon storage and ecosystem services, relevant for climate-resilient development policies.

Urbanisation is rapidly transforming landscapes across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with profound implications for biodiversity, carbon storage, and ecosystem service provision. Despite growing recognition of urban green spaces as providing nature-based solutions, empirical evidence in SSA remains fragmented and unevenly distributed. This review synthesises 38 studies (30 journal articles and 8 grey literature sources) to critically examine linkages between urbanisation, tree species diversity, carbon stocks, and ecosystem services in SSA cities. Results reveal strong thematic silos: 50% of studies focused on single components, while only 10.5% simultaneously addressed urbanisation, biodiversity, carbon dynamics, and ecosystem services respectively. Urban expansion is consistently associated with vegetation loss and ecological simplification, with tree communities dominated by a few exotic species and native diversity increasingly marginalised. Urban carbon stocks are systematically underestimated due to incomplete biomass inventories and limited inclusion of data from soils and belowground carbon pools. Ecosystem service assessments largely emphasise provisioning benefits, with regulating and cultural services receiving minimal quantitative attention. Social dimensions are weakly integrated, with limited incorporation of community perceptions and indigenous knowledge. Compared with global urban ecology, SSA research lags significantly in interdisciplinary integration, constraining evidence-based planning and climate-responsive urban development. Key gaps include insufficient linkage between land-use change and ecological functions, limited application of functional diversity metrics, inconsistent carbon accounting approaches, and weak science policy interfaces. The review highlights the urgent need for integrated urban ecology frameworks that combine spatial analysis, biodiversity assessment, carbon accounting, ecosystem service valuation, and community participatory approaches. Strengthening such integration is essential for advancing nature-based solutions, enhancing climate resilience, and supporting sustainable urban development in Sub-Saharan Africa.

• openalex https://doi.org/10.37284/eajenr.9.2.4798first seen 2026-05-05 19:13:29