GREEN BENEFITS, PRATO

Trees positively change urban environment mitigating temperatures, improving air quality, reducing rainwater flow and runoff risk, and lowering CO2 concentration in the air. Furthermore, trees provides to cities several economic benefits that exceed the costs for their maintenance, both ordinary and extraordinary. Carrying out a Green Benefits assessment, Pnat is able to quantify those benefits, providing the Institutions with a special tool to understand the value of our natural heritage. 

With Estra, Pnat carried out for Prato City an analysis and assessment on 29151 trees tagged in Green census Database made available to us by the municipality. Database has been split in 6 different areas (North (N), South (S), West (W), East (E), Montemurlo Industrial district (M), City center (C)), to evaluate the contribution of every single city area. Trees have been classified by species, and their contribution has been measured in terms of: Removal of air pollutant (Absorbed or Directly prevent), Decrease of rainwater runoff, Energy saving, CO2 saving (by storing and confiscating).

We considered trees’ species, diameter, health condition, position, age group, biomass, leaf area index (LAI). We estimated the green cover of the city of Prato by using aerial images, and processed data with software such as i-Tree Eco and i-Tree Canopy (i-Tree Tools, USDA). We estimated trees’ benefits and their current and future values by combining the information recollected with local climate and pollution conditions.