Geodesign Brazil: Trees for the Metropolitan Area of Sao Paulo

Trees are central in the Nature-based Solutions for promoting simultaneously quality of life and biodiversity while providing mitigation and adaptive ecosystem services in the cities. Based on the Geodesign framework using the GIS-Colab Platform, the impact of decision-making scenarios on tree-cover changes, as well as the consequences it will have for carbon sequestration, was evaluated for 2020, 2035 and 2050 in the Metropolitan Area of Sao Paulo (MASP). This metropolitan area is one of the largest urban conglomerates in the world with more than 22 million people. It lies on the Atlantic Rainforest Biome, a tropical moist broadleaf forest regarded as a world hotspot of biodiversity. First, a diagnostic of the current conditions was elaborated using available layers of geospatial data from the MASP. Then the future tree cover was discussed according to three scenarios: i) the non-adopters that represent the business as usual; ii) the late-adopters that develop innovative actions from 2035; and iii) early-adopters that undertake innovative interventions of urban greening from 2020. The vegetation cover was estimated to be reduced by 4% considering the current non-adopter scenario by 2050. On the other hand, vegetation cover has the potential to increase 30% in 2050, once there is an early adoption of innovative interventions, promoting various ecosystem services and co-benefits that support the quality of life and the biodiversity in the MASP, while fostering the carbon credit in the city through vegetation carbon sink. This article points to possible pathways required to attain desired afforestation goals in the MASP following the Geodesign framework. This framework proved to be effective even though it was based only on remote meetings, imposed by the social distancing during the pandemic of COVID-19.