Prato Urban Jungle brings environmental monitoring activities to life with the installation of the power plants - developed by the project partner CNR IBE - through which the state of the environment and the air quality will be monitored, before, during and after the forest interventions, with an ex ante and ex post approach able to quantify the benefits of the interventions.

Prato Urban Jungle for environmental quality: thanks to 30 CNR's AIRQino control units - IBE It will be constant monitoring of the air we breathe

Prato Urban Jungle gets into the heart of environmental monitoring activities thanks to the installation of the control units - developed by the project partner CNR IBE - monitoring the state of the environment and air quality, during and after intervention, with an ex ante and ex post approach able to quantify the benefits of interventions.

A total of 30 control units are located throughout the city to measure not only the benefits of forest intervention in pilot sites but also to measure data throughout the municipality.
 

AIRQino control units will provide open and available data to the public and they will constitute a low-cost observational network model that can be replicated in other areas and contexts and can be managed also by the citizens themselves or by other associations in the territory.

Along with traditional parameters such as temperature and air humidity, measured concentrations of fine dust (PM10 and PM2.5), carbon dioxide (CO2) and the main pollutants (ozone and nitrogen oxides).

By developing a mathematical model in “digital twin” logic, i.e. virtual twin of the part of the urban fabric subject of the interventions, a virtual environment will be created, continuously connected to the real world via sensor networks, which stimulates both real-world and virtual scenarios containing new ideas, new projects for future expansion of reforestation.

In addition, CNR researchers are conducting sampling campaigns for intervention sites, to develop targeted technologies and intervention capable of monitoring and restoring fertility and biodiversity levels of natural sites compromised. For example, soils that will be returned to a natural state contact with the atmosphere after years of waterproofing by de-sealing the
parking areas, for example).

"This is a very important step both for the project Prato Urban Jungle and for the city of Prato that from today will have a new environmental monitoring tool that will join with those already present - explains the deputy Mayor for urban planning, environment and circular economy Valerio Barberis - this will allow the administration to take more considered decisions on the environmental theme by better designing or redesigning urban spaces that are constantly subject to change"