Woody species and supporting ecosystem services: the case study of the city of Turin (Italy)

The growth of the world's urban population enhances the interest for urban forests and their ecosystem services (ES). Trees and shrubs in urban environments provide habitats for many living organisms and several supporting services for human well-being, such as biodiversity increasing. The aim of the research was to assess supporting ES in terms of biodiversity provided by woody species of the Turin city, one of the most polluted Italian cities. After a deep bibliographic research, data of the census provided in March 2019 by the Turin Municipality (AlberaTo system) were analysed using a GIS platform. The main ecological indicators have been analysed to evaluate the level of woody species biodiversity of the city (Simpson' diversity index and Shannon evenness index) and their ecosystem services. The levels of biodiversity are different among neighborhoods, the mean diversity values were generally medium-high, and the evenness values were high. Furthermore, the degree of similarity among neighborhoods was calculated with Jaccard index and Bray-Curtis index. The study suggested planning guidelines for selecting in which Turin neigborhoods the improvement of biodiversity is a priority. The future green areas planning activities must consider these results, aiming at increasing the number of woody species and the related level of biodiversity in the neighborhoods of Turin.