Abstract
Urban areas are a major source of anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions because of road traffic and local heating with natural gas, oil or coal. Rome is among the largest European cities (129,000 ha) with a large volume of green areas (69.6% of the total Municipality area). The CO2 sequestration (CS) capability for the greenery extending for about 300 km2 inside the area delimited by the Great Ring Road (GRA) in Rome was calculated combining satellite data with CS data measured in the field. Data from Sentinel-2 were collected and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was computed on a pixel-base. Three plant classes homogeneous in terms of annual NDVI profile were identified: deciduous trees (DT), evergreen trees (ET) and meadows (M) covering an area of 14,142.027 ha within the GRA, of which M had the highest percentage (48%), followed by DT (27%) and ET (25%). CS ranged from 428,241,492.9 Tons CO2 year-1 (ET) to 263,072,460.6 Tons CO2 year-1 (M). The total CS of the greenery inside the GRA was 1049,490,355.4 Tons CO2 year-1 resulting in an annual economic value of $772,424,901.6/ha. The CO2 sequestration capability of the considered plant classes could be incorporated into the national greenhouse gas emission budget to calculate the contribution of CO2 sequestration to the economy of Rome.
Highlights
Nowadays, a target of air quality monitoring is addressed to greenhouse gases concentration responsible for global air temperature increasing [1]
Evergreen species are mainly distributed along the main river valleys and in forested areas in the western and northwestern sectors of the city. Due to both ecological and historical drivers, the north-south course of the Tiber River constitutes a major barrier between the deciduous forest vegetation of the western part of the city and the southeast where vegetation is mainly composed by evergreen species, pastures and fallow areas (Celesti-Grapow and Pignatti 1995)
In the northeastern part of the city, vegetation is much more fragmented, and scattered remnants of pastures and evergreen vegetation are mainly distributed at the rural-urban interface, whereas patches of deciduous forests are found along the course of the Aniene River
Summary
A target of air quality monitoring is addressed to greenhouse gases concentration responsible for global air temperature increasing [1]. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) led to an agreement to reduce rising levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and the Kyoto Protocol proposed carbon (C) reduction through decreasing fossil fuel emission or accumulating C in vegetation and soil [4]. There is the need to increase knowledge on the role of urban greenery in environmental quality improvement to select the more suitable species which can be planted [18] [25] [26] [27]. In this context, a useful tool to ex-
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