Long-term planting of trees in urban green spaces reduces soil organic carbon mineralization and promotes carbon sequestration

Urban park green spaces serve as critical ecological infrastructure for mitigating the urban heat island effect and function as significant carbon sinks within the urban organic carbon cycle. Some research indicated that the average SOC content in urban parks was 7.9 ± 2.4 kg m-2, which is higher than that of urban non-parks and cropland in the same region. However, current research on organic carbon mineralization within these green spaces remains limited, particularly regarding the contributions of different organic carbon pools to this process.