Air quality impact of an urban park over time

Florence, Italy’s main park was modeled using UFORE for the years 1985 and 2004 to determine how changes in the structure of the park forest over time affected its ability to remove air pollutants. Anthropogenic and natural changes to the park, including a severe windstorm in 2003 and drought, resulted in a park forest structure with fewer trees, but of larger diameter with greater leaf surface area and leaf biomass. The air quality impact of these changes was negligible in terms of criteria pollutants. In contrast, carbon storage of the trees decreased significantly (43%) as did the emissions of BVOCs (38%). Species are ranked according to their ability to improve air quality.