Abstract
Urban green infrastructure plays an increasingly significant role in sustainable urban development planning as it provides important regulating and cultural ecosystem services. Monitoring of such dynamic and complex systems requires technological solutions which provide easy data collection, processing, and utilization at affordable costs. To meet these challenges a pilot study was conducted using a network of wireless, low cost, and multiparameter monitoring devices, which operate using Internet of Things (IoT) technology, to provide real-time monitoring of regulatory ecosystem services in the form of meaningful indicators for both human health and environmental policies. The pilot study was set in a green area situated in the center of Moscow, which is exposed to the heat island effect as well as high levels of anthropogenic pressure. Sixteen IoT devices were installed on individual trees to monitor their ecophysiological parameters from 1 July to 31 November 2019 with a time resolution of 1.5 h. These parameters were used as input variables to quantify indicators of ecosystem services related to climate, air quality, and water regulation. Our results showed that the average tree in the study area during the investigated period reduced extreme heat by 2 °C via shading, cooled the surrounding area by transferring 2167 ± 181 KWh of incoming solar energy into latent heat, transpired 137 ± 49 mm of water, sequestered 8.61 ± 1.25 kg of atmospheric carbon, and removed 5.3 ± 0.8 kg of particulate matter (PM10). The values of the monitored processes varied spatially and temporally when considering different tree species (up to five to ten times), local environmental conditions, and seasonal weather. Thus, it is important to use real-time monitoring data to deepen understandings of the processes of urban forests. There is a new opportunity of applying IoT technology not only to measure trees functionality through fluxes of water and carbon, but also to establish a smart urban green infrastructure operational system for management.
Highlights
Urbanization is increasing on a global scale, with more than half of the world0 s population presently living in cities, with expectations for cities to reach two-thirds of the world population by 2050 [1].This shift is driven by positive factors like economic opportunities and higher levels of innovation and technology [2]
We found that main variability between individual trees was due to the difference in stem size and canopy area
Sæbø et al [68] showed that Betula pendula improves air quality by particulate adsorption much better than Acertoplatanoides and Tilia cordata, howeverecosystem-services tree size should be taken into account a factor
Summary
Urbanization is increasing on a global scale, with more than half of the world0 s population presently living in cities, with expectations for cities to reach two-thirds of the world population by 2050 [1]. This shift is driven by positive factors like economic opportunities and higher levels of innovation and technology [2]. Energy-intensive systems significantly contribute to global carbon emissions, ecosystem degradation, and biodiversity loss on a global scale [5,6] It is well-known that urban ecosystems are heterotrophic ecosystems depending on natural capital and provisions from the ecosystem services (ES) of extra-urban areas [7,8,9]. Among the different ES, regulatory and cultural services are the most important for scientific and policy initiatives related to green infrastructure in urban areas [15,16]
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