The Challenge in the Management of Historic Trees in Urban Environments during Climate Change: The Case of Corso Trieste (Rome, Italy)

Abstract

This study carries out a quantitative analysis of the impact on microclimate (air temperature and thermal comfort) of a row of 165 historical Pinus pinea L. located in a central neighbourhood of Rome (Italy). The analysis starts from a qualitative general analysis on the stressful conditions leading to tree decline in the urban environment especially during extreme climate change phenomena. Subsequently, the effects of planting new types of trees are assessed using ENVI-met, a 3D prognostic non-hydrostatic model for the simulation of surface-plant-air interactions. Results, obtained by simulating three different scenarios in which the trees are first removed and then modified, show that a gradual renewal of the existing trees, based on priority criteria of maturity or senescence, vegetative and phytosanitary conditions, efficiency of ecosystem services and safety for citizens, has positive effects on thermal comfort. By integrating current results and scientific literature, the final aim of this work is to provide stakeholders with a strategic and systemic planning methodology, which, based on the innovative integrated use of tree management and modelling tools, may (i) enhance the benefits of greening in a scenario of climate change and (ii) lead to intervention strategies based on complementarity between conservation of existing trees and tree renewal.

Tree Measurements in the Urban Environment: Insights from Traditional and Digital Field Instruments to Smartphone Applications

“…For example, citizens could report the presence of underperforming trees, conflicts with pavements or other structures, spontaneously grown trees in inappropriate areas, and other useful information for management (Cambria et al 2021). In addition, more widespread data on size and tree species could be used to quantify their ecosystem services using existing models and design effective green infrastructure for cities (Gatto et al 2021;Pace et al 2021).…”

Potential Impacts of Green Infrastructure on NOx and PM10 in Different Local Climate Zones of Brindisi, Italy

“…ENVI-met is a 3D modeling tool tailored to microclimates within urban environments, encompassing considerations of building materials, morphology, vegetation (both surface cover and 3D tree models), pollution sources, surface characteristics, and meteorological conditions. This approach has been previously employed in various studies to investigate urban microclimates, vegetation effects, and their correlation with air quality [33][34][35][36][37][38]. Several procedural steps were taken to generate the necessary data for simulating the Brindisi case.…”

“…The set up employed in this paper is similar in terms of turbulence model, initial and boundary conditions, and grid size to that used by previous studies [35]. Specifically, the 3D simulation area (computational domain) of the investigated area had a dimension of 220 m (x direction) × 214 m (y direction) with a vertical height (z direction) of 105 m. The studied area was meshed with a grid resolution of 2 m × 2 m × 3 m (using a telescopic vertical grid by 6%), except for the lowest five cells (close to the ground) whose vertical resolution was 0.6 m. This grid resolution permitted us to capture physical phenomena like shear layers and vortices [39].…”