Particle deposition in a peri-urban Mediterranean forest.
Urban and peri-urban forests provide a multitude of Ecosystem Services to the citizens. While the capacity of removing carbon dioxide and gaseous compounds from the atmosphere has been tested, their capacity to sequestrate particles (PM) has been poorly investigated. Mediterranean forest ecosystems are often located nearby or inside large urban areas. This is the case of the city of Rome, Italy, which hosts several urban parks and is surrounded by forested areas. In particular, the Presidential Estate of Castelporziano is a 6000 ha forested area located between the Tyrrhenian coast and the city (25 km downtown of Rome). Under the hypothesis that forests can ameliorate air quality thanks to particle deposition, we measured fluxes of PM1, 2.5 and 10 with fast optical sensors and eddy covariance technique. We found that PM1 is mainly deposited during the central hours of the day, while negligible fluxes were observed for PM 2.5 and 10. A Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory model (HYSPLIT v4) simulated PM emission from traffic areas in the city of Rome and showed that a significant portion of PM is removed by vegetation in the days when the plume trajectory meets the urban forest.
Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre for the Soil-Plant System, Rome, Italy. Electronic address: silvano.fares@crea.gov.it.
Silvano
S
Fares
Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre for the Soil-Plant System, Rome, Italy.
Flavia
F
Savi
Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Environmental Biology, Rome, Italy.
Lina
L
Fusaro
Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre for the Soil-Plant System, Rome, Italy.
Adriano
A
Conte
Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Environmental Biology, Rome, Italy.
Elisabetta
E
Salvatori
Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre for the Soil-Plant System, Rome, Italy.
Rita
R
Aromolo
Sapienza University of Rome, Department of Environmental Biology, Rome, Italy.
Fausto
F
Manes
D000393:Air Pollutants; D000397:Air Pollution; D002947:Cities; D065928:Forests; D007558:Italy; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010316:Particle Size; D052638:Particulate Matter
D000393:Air Pollutants; D052638:Particulate Matter
Eddy covariance; HYSPLIT; Holm oak; Mediterranean vegetation; Particle deposition