Reforestation of Urban Districts in Mediterranean Climate: New Decarbonization Models for Cities

Abstract

The transformation of cities and urban and peri-urban neighborhoods into flexible, adaptive, and sustainable organisms, in the context of the latest European policy proposals on climate, energy, transportation, land use and resources, have become today's issues that can no longer be postponed. These issues introduce the focus that has been experimentally analyzed through the study, census, and subsequent cataloging of more than 100 tree and shrub species found in the Mediterranean basin according to their carbon uptake and storage capacities, defining a synoptic framework useful, for actors in the field, in silviculture and urban reforestation. These solutions led to the compilation of a detailed database through experimental research that took place in a public housing neighborhood of the Municipality of Rome Capital, the subject of a proposed urban redevelopment, numerically quantifying the carbon absorbed and stored for each individual species. The topic is of great scientific relevance considering national and European strategies and the proposal, put forward by the European Commission, on the New EU Forestry Strategy Fit for 55. Keywords: urban reforestation, urban district, natural carbon sinks