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Oxygen production potential of trees in urban areas: a reality check?

Article in Current Science · September 2021

DOI: 10.18520/cs/v121/i5/622-625

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GENERAL ARTICLES

Oxygen production potential of trees in urban

areas: a reality check?
Suresh Ramanan, S.*, Mohammed Osman, Arun Kumar Shanker and K. B. Sridhar

Trees are referred to as the lungs of the earth for their oxygen releasing potential, via photosynthesis.
Air quality in urban areas has deteriorated and it is impacting the well-being of human life. The
oxygen spa or artificial oxygen environment is portrayed as an alternative to air pollution. Against
this backdrop, there are voices supporting to increase the tree cover in urban areas, thereby in-
creasing oxygen availability. Increasing tree numbers to remove air pollutants is a logical argu-
ment, but improving the air quality by increasing the oxygen concentration by growing more trees
needs introspection. Thus the question – How much oxygen is produced by different tree species
and how to quantify it? According to atmospheric researchers the oxygen concentration of the at-
mosphere has not changed for quite a long time. Also, oxygen production from the terrestrial eco-
systems is less compared to the marine and aquatic ecosystems. Moreover, there are numerous
benefits from urban trees or urban greenspaces, so do we really need to worry about oxygen pro-
duction or release from urban trees?
Keywords: Oxygen release, photosynthetic rate, trees, urban greenspaces, valuation.
AIR pollution, poor air quality and high particulate matter ways that we will hazard the future of our descendants
(PM2.5, PM10) concentration are some of the common before we make a small dent in our oxygen supply’5. The
phrases frequently found in the headlines of newspapers oxygen concentration in the atmosphere is 21% and it has
across the globe1,2. Consequently, news articles about not changed much6. Approximately 2.5 billion years ago,
oxygen bars, oxygen cylinders and oxygen spa are found the condition was different; there existed an atmosphere
subsequently in the newspapers3,4. Industrial revolution devoid of oxygen7. Geologists and atmospheric research-
and urbanization have deteriorated the air quality which ers point out a time period when the increase in oxygen
has great implications on human well-being. This fact is concentration of the earth’s atmosphere happened, and
not controversial, i.e. air pollution is real. However, there termed it as the Great Oxygenation Event. Till date, re-
are debates on portraying oxygen spa or artificial oxygen searchers are working on this area for better clarity8.
environment as an alternate to air pollution. Medical pro- Irrespective of the uncertainty on the time period of the
fessionals are not yet decisive on the concept of oxygen Great Oxygenation Event, scientists agree that photosyn-
spa. On the other hand, environmentalists insist on plant- thetic oxygen released from terrestrial as well as oceanic
ing more trees and increasing the green cover of cities as autotrophs has shaped life on the planet. In the context of
a remedy for issues related to air pollution. The propo- deteriorated air quality in urban areas, planting trees is a
nents of tree planting often use statements like – ‘trees more potent way of tackling air pollution, as a pro-
give oxygen and we need oxygen to live’. environmentalist advocates. Studies have quantified and
Even in the 1970s, there was ambiguity on the deple- proven that trees can remove sulphur dioxide (SO2), par-
tion of oxygen in the atmospheric air. Broecker5 com- ticulate matter (PM10) and ozone (O3) (refs 9–11). It may
mented that the possibility of depleting atmospheric seem natural for the trees to sequester CO2 and other
oxygen was impossible even if all the fossil fuel reserves gases, but trees as such have limits. There are variations
were burnt out. However, the article also pointed out that in the extent of remediation between different tree species.
there was a good chance for the depletion of oxygen (dis- The varying level of air pollutants will have an impact on
solved oxygen) in the aquatic ecosystem due to anthropo- the growth of trees too, i.e. their metabolic processes,
genic activity. He quotes ‘There are hundreds of other both photosynthesis and respiration. It depends on indi-
vidual tree species and its ability to tolerate the stress12.
Technically, air pollution is the addition of undesira-
Suresh Ramanan, S. is in the ICAR-Central Agroforestry Research
Institute, Jhansi 284 003, India; Mohammed Osman, Arun Kumar
ble, harmful gases and substances in the air, either natu-
Shanker and K. B. Sridhar are in the ICAR-Central Research Institute rally or through man-made activities. Pertinently, air
for Dryland Agriculture, Hyderabad 500 059, India. quality in urban areas becomes worse sometimes that it is
*For correspondence. (e-mail: [email protected]) unfit for breathing. As stated earlier, atmospheric oxygen

622 CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 121, NO. 5, 10 SEPTEMBER 2021

 GENERAL ARTICLES
Table 1. Methods for measuring photosynthetic oxygen evolution in plants

Methods Mechanism Reference

The Clark electrode 19, 26, 40

Leaf disc electrode Polarography
Joliot-type electrode
Optical O2 sensor Photoluminescence quenching 41
Genetically encoded O2 sensor The sensitivity of fluorescence protein to O2 42
Photoacoustic spectroscopy Photobaric contribution due to oxygen evolution 43–45
EPR (electron paramagnetic resonance) Oximetry Paramagnetic property of the O2 46, 47
LSI (large-scale integration)-based biosensor Based on the amperometric sensor array system 48
Fibre optic O2 probe Fluorescence quenching 19
Differential zirconium analyzer Galvanic sensors 25
Differential fuel cell analyzer
Membrane inlet mass spectroscopy Mass spectroscopy 49, 50
Dual-frequency phase modulation technique Based on luminescence lifetime 24
Pulse ratio technique

concentration has not changed at all, but only the addition is a wide distinction between photosynthetic oxygen release
of other gases like carbon monoxide, SO2 and pollutants and the former. Many researchers developed methods and
make it unfit13,14. Some literature mention about the de- tools to measure photosynthetic oxygen release which are
crease in oxygen concentration inside urban areas15,16. listed in Table 1. There have been few good reviews in
Even though there is uncertainty about the former state- this aspect as well18,19,23–26.
ment, increasing the number of trees to remove air pollu- Despite numerous developments, there remain some
tants and to improve air quality by increasing the oxygen unanswered questions. For instance, there was a research
concentration at the local level is a logical argument. paper titled ‘Measurement of gross photosynthesis, respi-
Thus the question: How much oxygen is produced by dif- ration in the light, and mesophyll conductance using
ferent tree species and how to quantify?, remains a re- H218O labeling’ in the Journal of Plant Physiology27.
searchable issue. Commenting on this article as a significant contribution,
Holloway-Phillips28 pointed out that the in vivo mea-
Estimating photosynthetic oxygen production surement of oxygen fluxes based research had declined in
the last 20 years. Another research work also attempted
Photosynthesis is a biochemical process which provides real-time imaging of oxygen using large scale integration
energy for the sustenance of life on the earth. During this biosensor method, but it focused on the measurement in
process, oxygen is released as a by-product which has excised leaves. Overall, it seems that each of these differ-
changed the evolutionary history of the planet itself17. ent methods for estimation or determination of oxygen
Similarly, photorespiration process in plants ensures their release from autotrophic organisms, have their own ad-
growth and development. Thus photosynthesis and respi- vantages and disadvantages. Despite research for more
ration are vital physiological processes which have intri- than 100 years on photosynthetic oxygen release, there is
gued researchers. Attempts for measuring photosynthetic uncertainty. Thus, one can be skeptical about estimating
and respiration rates in different autotrophs have been the the oxygen production of urban trees.
focus of plant physiological research even today18. In
physiological research, it is assumed that the photosyn- Estimating oxygen production in trees
thetic rate in the plant is equal to the gas exchange rate,
i.e. CO2 and O2 flux. Thus, early researchers like Otto There are works that quantify the oxygen production in
Warburg attempted to measure the gas exchange rate as a trees exclusively, even in terms of monetary benefits10,29–33.
means to quantify the photosynthetic rate in plants19. There are two approaches widely followed for quantify-
There were attempts to measure photosynthetic oxygen ing oxygen production in trees:
in 1937 from isolated chloroplast20. Through a similar
experiment, Mehler and Brown21 using isotope tracer 18O2 (i) Net primary productivity (NPP) is measured using a
also proved that oxygen released during photosynthesis portable photosynthesis measurement system and
comes from the splitting of a water molecule. There were the values are used to compute the total assimilation
other important works on measuring photosynthetic oxy- per day. Using the principle of converting the total
gen during the 1980s (ref. 22). Scientifically, oxygen assimilation amount into the quantum of CO2 fixed,
measurements are done at two media – one aqueous (liq- the quantum of oxygen released is computed using
uid phase) and another one at the gaseous phase. There the formula given below
are robust methodologies to measure dissolved oxygen in
freshwater as well as marine ecosystems. However, there QO2 avg = Y × Pavg × (1–0.2) × 32/1000, (1)

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 121, NO. 5, 10 SEPTEMBER 2021 623

GENERAL ARTICLES

where QO2 avg is the average amount of oxygen re- ing the net present value of trees is also practiced in In-
leased by a plant per day (g d–1), Y the leaf area and dian context36. The argument is not about methodology of
Pavg is the average net assimilation rate per unit area valuating trees but valuating trees based on their utility as
(m mol m–2 d–1) (ref. 32). sources of oxygen. Moreover, there are numerous other
(ii) An empirical equation to determine the amount of benefits from urban trees or urban greenspaces, so do we
oxygen produced based on the carbon sequestered really need to worry on the oxygen production or release
from urban trees? Also, does the oxygen produced by the
Net O2 release (kg yr–1) = net C sequestration trees really improve the quality of air that we breathe?
(kg yr–1) × (32/12) (ref. 10). (2) This question arises because there are studies reporting
that the air quality in urban areas is poor due to pollutants
Both the approaches quantify the net oxygen released by like SO2, PM2.5, or PM10, but there are not enough studies
a tree after accounting for the oxygen consumed during to support that oxygen concentration in urban areas is
the respiration process. There is a wide difference bet- lesser compared to surroundings of an urban greenspace
ween these two approaches. The first method quantifies except for Ginzburg et al.16.
the net oxygen production at that instant as its measure- Similarly, there is a belief in India that certain trees
ments depend upon the actual number of leaves and other have high oxygen production potential like Ficus benga-
leaf traits such as transpiration rate, stomatal conductance, lensis, Ficus religiosa, Azadirachta indica, etc. There is a
intra-cellular CO2 concentration and other parameters. And need for scientific studies in this aspect so as to prevent
the latter only quantifies oxygen produced so far till that the dominance of certain tree species in urban tree planting
moment as its measurements depend upon the net carbon programmes. Of late, researchers are arguing for increas-
sequestered in the past. It also assumes that the trees hav- ing diversity among urban trees to enhance the utility
ing high net carbon sequestration must also have net oxy- value of urban greenspaces and urban forests37–39. Also
gen production. Further, the major disadvantage of the the concept of prioritizing tree species for urban planting
empirical equation method is that it does not account for based on their utility can be misleading in many situations,
the nature of tree, growth rate, tree architecture or leaf as it should be site-specific rather than a blanket recom-
area. For instance, the fast growing trees like Casuarina mendation. In all good-faith, local tree species should be
will usually have high net oxygen production based on the first choice in urban tree planting programmes, unless
the empirical approach. In real-time, there will be a need there is a systematic evaluation of trees for their utility
to estimate the oxygen production potential of trees rather values like PM2.5 removal or oxygen production potential
than estimating the oxygen released so far by the tree. which should be supported scientifically.

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