An Analysis of Carbon Sequestration from Green Surfaces in Durres City

Abstract

In recent years the urban population in Durres city has grown ex­ponentially, leading to an increase of CO2 and consequently contributing on a large scale to climate change. Urban trees are basic to sequester CO2 emis­sions as they incorporate carbon in their biomass. The amount of C02 se­questration from green surfaces in Durres city was 50.13 ∙ 106 kg/year instead of 116.35 ∙ 106 kg/year that it should be. Increasing the amount of green veg­etation, the energy that can be stored will be 3.7 ∙ 105 MWh compared with the actual value of 162,48 MWh. Consequently, water carrying capacity will be 2321 times more than the amount of water needed to maintain the pres­ent public green spaces. These data can be used to help assess the actual and potential role of green trees in reducing atmospheric CO2, a dominant greenhouse gas. This study was conducted under the project “Green lungs for our cities - Alternative and comprehensive platform for monitoring air quality, noise pollution and urban greenery to affect policies at the local level”. Measurements were performed with the cooperation of Eper Center, professors and students of “Aleksander Moisiu” University.