ANALISI GEOSPAZIALI PER LA VALUTAZIONE DELLA BIOMASSA ALL’INTERNO DI UN AREA PROTETTA NEL CONTESTO DELL’AREA METROPOLITANA DI ROMA

Abstract

The Metropolitan city of Roma Capitale (Italy) represents a vast area, including many municipalities with the purpose to strength the promotion and coordination of economic and social development. Natural Parks included in the Metropolitan area are able to provide ecosystem services and resources such as agricultural and forest products as well as biomass resources that could be an opportunity to replace fossil fuels, make the city more climate friendly and, at the same time, to relaunch the sustainable management of forest that are often abandoned and prone to degradation risk. The goal of this paper is to investigate and update the actual distribution of the main forest types of the Bracciano-Martignano Regional Natural Park, through GIS and Remote Sensing techniques, in order to assess the biomass potential present in the forest areas. Results showed that there are about 20,000 t of woody biomass per year available and confirmed the importance of Sentinel-2 satellite data for vegetation applications, reaching a high overall accuracy. Rationale forest management can be strategic to deal both with forest degradation and city energy supply.

Keywords

• Sentinel-2 (S-2)
• Remote sensing
• GIS
• Biomass Energy
• Forestry
• Spatial Analysis
• Rome Metropolitan Area