Natural vegetation and ecosystem services related to air quality improvement: Tropospheric ozone removal by evergreen and deciduous forests in Latium (Italy)

The background concentrations of tropospheric ozone (O3) are increasing in both industrialized and developing countries, thus posing a concrete risk to human health, natural vegetation and crops. Several papers have reported that the total O3 flux from the atmosphere to canopy surfaces can have positive effects on air quality, and consequently to human health and wellbeing. In this work, we have estimated the role of the main natural woody vegetation classes of the CORINE Land cover Classification System in the Latium Region (Central Italy) in removing O3 during the growing season of the year 2005. Cumulated O3 fluxes data allowed to estimate the externality value of this ecosystem service provided by deciduous and evergreen forests in the Latium region. This value should be around 57,248,431 $ and 2,286,567 $ in the Apennine Chain Province for deciduous and evergreen forests, respectively, and 22,376,136 $ and 3,114,686 in the Tyrrhenian Province for deciduous and evergreen forests, respectively. This corresponds, for the growing season 2005, to a total value of 85,025,821 $ attributable to the ecosystem service of tropospheric O3 removal provided by the natural forests of the Latium region. Although we acknowledge the uncertainty in producing such estimate, we think our effort as a useful first contribution addressed to the monetization of one of the ecosystem services of Italian forests at a regional level, and more in general, to open the discussion in a field that would be very useful in forest management and environmental policy-making.