Ecosystem services and economic values provided by urban park trees in the air polluted city of Mashhad

Engaging Young People in the Development of Innovative Nature-Inspired Technologies for Carbon Sequestration in Cities: Case Studies from Portugal

“…Our results are in agreement with previous studies, e.g., [20,48,59], that urban trees can be an important force not only for carbon sequestration and air pollutant removal but also to improve the urban water cycle if appropriate management measures and planning solutions are adopted. The change in precipitation patterns is one of the most felt effects of climate change in the Mediterranean, including Portugal [60], namely, the decrease in mean annual precipitation.…”

“…In Porto, with a mean annual precipitation of 1100 mm [62], P. hispanica was the species that most affected the quantified hydrological parameters, e.g., the biggest sampled tree can intercept 13.1 m 3 /year and avoid runoff of 2.6 m 3 /year. Similar results were obtained for Platanus orientalis in recent studies in Mashhad, Iran [48]. In Loulé, with a lower mean annual precipitation, about 600 mm [62], the effects of trees on water intercepted and runoff avoided were lower; however, through their transpiration, trees can make an important contribution to increasing atmospheric humidity and attenuating temperature peaks [20], which is the main environmental constraint for Loulé (Table 1).…”

“…It is already known e.g., [15,[44][45][46][47][48][49] that different tree species supply ecosystem services with different efficiency and that within each species, the size and condition of the sampled trees are relevant factors, namely, for carbon sequestration and storage. This study held in the summer period in two Portuguese cities confirmed some significant differences (p < 0.05) in the ability of the tree species to sequester CO 2 and produce O 2 (Table 2).…”

“…Regarding the removal of atmospheric pollutants, characteristics of the species such as leaf size and structure, wax content, ultrastructure, thickness, pubescence, and surface roughness, but also climatic conditions such as precipitation, wind, and quantity and composition of atmospheric pollutants can affect plant efficiency [44,48,49]. The P. hispanica trees were significantly more efficient (p < 0.05) in air pollutant removal (CO, O 3 , NO 2 , SO 2 , PM10, and PM2.5) in Porto, because they present a more favorable leaf morphology to air pollutant deposition and at the same time the largest leaf areas among the sampled trees.…”

“…However, some limitations were found in the air pollution removal calculation in the i-Tree. Although the intrinsic characteristics of each species condition its ability to remove air pollutants [44,48,49], this aspect is not included in the i-Tree model. For each tree species, the total removal of air pollutants is calculated based on the total leaf area only, not considering, e.g., leaf properties such as hair and wax cover.…”