A software will choose the most suitable trees to improve air quality in cities.
It is called Airtree (Aggregated Interpretation of the Energy Balance and Water Dynamics for Ecosystem Services Assessment) and has been tested in Bologna and Milan, two areas exposed to high levels of air pollutants.
The study is part of the Life project, coordinated by Crea, in collaboration with the Cnr, Enea.
the consultancy company Arianet, the Metropolitan City of Bologna, the Municipality of Milan and the Polytechnic University of Madrid, the results of which have been published in the Atmosphere magazine.
The new software is a model that couples soil, plants and atmospheric processes to predict the exchanges of carbon dioxide (Co2), water vapor (H2o), ground-level ozone (O3), particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.
5) and nitrogen dioxide (No2) between leaves and the atmosphere and integrates them across five layers to achieve canopy fluxes.
The scholars have created maps of the vegetation of the two cities, integrating the high-resolution images of the European Space Agency's Sentinel 2 satellites with the data on urban greenery provided by the respective municipalities.
"After simulating the highest rate of pollution in the two cities in the extreme hypothesis of total absence of trees - explains Alessandro Alivernini, researcher at Crea Foreste e Legno and co-author of the study - we analyzed the absorption capacity of atmospheric pollutants by the different trees, finding that those with the highest absorption rate were hackberry, common plane, Siberian elm and red oak".
Airtree can be used to plan urban reforestation, adapting it to the specific characteristics of each environmental and climatic context.
In fact, understanding which tree species to include is essential for the conservation of biodiversity, for the improvement of air quality and for making cities and human settlements more inclusive.
safe and sustainable.
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