How effective are the vegetated surfaces for the CO2 sequestration? Analyzing parameters and methods

Abstract

Human activities are severe sources of greenhouse gases and, particularly, of CO2. This trend, according with the highly demanding criteria released by the international institutions, must be suitably cut, in order of turning the pollutant emissions within limits that will guarantee a sustainable and environmentally safe development of the human species. Apart the measures that are since long time usually implemented in the technological systems, other interventions should be properly adopted in supporting the sustainability of the anthropic activities. These actions mainly apply to the so-called bioclimatic and passive measures and, particularly, could usefully refer to the plantation of proper surfaces of trees that, thanks to their metabolic mechanisms, are able to sequester relevant amounts of greenhouse gases. In this paper, after a description of a simple method for evaluating the quantities of CO2 sequestered by trees, the availability of the main parameters on which the sequestration of CO2 by urban trees is based will be discussed.