Urban context and neighbouring lands: how reforestation could have a role in the implementation of Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans

Abstract

Reforestation is the appropriate natural tool to mitigate the climate change. The authors illustrate how to manage cuts and plantations of trees making profit from unused lands, to reach different carbon capture goals. Unused lands, moreover, are frequently in the neighbouring of Municipalities which often are politically responsible of these territories. Their destination as carbon sink inside the implementation of the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs) is particularly suitable, participating in a synergic way to reduce the CO2 municipal emissions by 55 % in 2030 with respect to the 1990 datum. In the framework of a SECAP, this level is mandatory and participates to the common huge effort to decarbonize energy needs. After having modelled some intrinsic aspects related to the dynamics of the carbon capture due to the growth of trees, the research demonstrated how, with a proper management of cuts and plantations, a new concept of mutualism between city and territory can be designed, recognizing the crucial role of neighbouring unused lands alongside those direct actions usually implemented to reduce the carbon intensity of a city.

Carbon Footprint of Single-Use Plastic Items and Their Substitution

“…The life cycle approach considered is presented in Figure 1: in the cradle-to-gate section, the extraction of raw materials (oil-based or biological ones) is considered, as well as the production of different types of plastic and the manufacturing of products for each category; the use phase is neglected with regard to single-use items-it is considered only for multi-use ones (referring to a suitable number of instances of reuse); the end-of-life scenario is represented by a proper share of incineration, recycling and waste disposal in landfill. In upstream and downstream phases, the average European values for energy-and transport-related emissions were considered [31,32]. For all the categories considered, the same boundaries and scenarios were considered in order to obtain the best comparison level among categories and, above all, among substitution scenarios within the same product category in Table 1.…”

Synergy between Cities and surrounding territory to achieve the international agreements on energy and CO2 reduction. The Municipality of Avezzano in the Abruzzo Region (Italy) case.

“…Furthermore, forest management in terms of rotation crops has been modelled [13]. In this study, a scenario with a goal to maximize carbon uptake has been adopted [24]. All the trees must be planted in the same year, the maximum annual uptake is 3.20 [t C/ (yr ha)] and after 33 years the total uptake is 39.3 [t C/ ha] (Figure 1).…”

“…Furthermore, a reforestation model has been used [24] [13], with a genetic algorithm that reconstructs the carbon uptake capacity of the oak forest. In this way, a proper selective afforestation of unused land can bring interesting results and be modulated in order to fulfill the net-zero scenario (or going to negative values beyond 2050 targets) and not compete with agricultural land.…”