According to a new study, cities and urban centers can be of great help in soaking up carbon dioxide (CO2), which is the main greenhouse gas resulting in global warming.

The study says that even as the urban centers, which account for about four percent of the world's land surface and is rising due to increasing population of the world, are believed to lack "sinks" where vegetation soaks up CO2 naturally, they can make a significant contribution.

Scientists in the UK carried out the research in the city of Leicester in English with a population of 300,000 living in an area of 73 square kilometers. The team studies the carbon absorbing capacity of the city’s parks, domestic gardens, abandoned industrial land, golf courses, school playing fields, road verges and river banks.

The scientists found that 231,000 tonnes of carbon was absorbed directly, which is about ten times the expected amount. Urban "sinks" cannot be looked as a solution to the global pollutants but can help mitigate their impact.

"Currently, once land in the UK is considered to be urban, its biological carbon density is assumed to be zero. Our study illustrates this is not the case and that there is a substantial pool of carbon locked away in the vegetation within a city," said researcher Zoe Davies of the University of Kent, southeast England.

Davies said that planting more trees in urban areas could help further increase the carbon absorbing capacity of these areas.