SITE VISIT OBJECTIVES
Present a case study of how to include green areas in the planning of cities, developing both already existing woodlands and new ones.

COMPANY PROFILE
At the beginning of October the first part of the future Mestre Wood has been opened to the citizens. An area of 1.400 ha, provided for by the Town planning-scheme, and inserted in between the motorway, the railway and the airport will be transformed in a healthy lung for the city, by bedding thousands of trees of several endemic tree species (oaks, ash trees, elms, hazels).
Each of the 186 thousands inhabitants of Mestre is expected to have 75 m2 of public green at his disposal, against 13 m2 for Milan’s and 14 m2 for Rome’s.
The role of the wood will be very important in a city where each inhabitant has 2 cars in average, CO2 emissions caused by traffic are 16.589 t/year and the legal limit set for PM10 is overcome 158 days/year. Another problem regards the lagoon, which is subjected to pollution (nitrogen and phosphorus), mainly caused by agricultural activities: the watershed basin occupies an area of almost 200.000 ha.
One of the main expected results of the wood will be the sequestration of carbon emissions (which cost more than 10€ for each ton produced), but also the buffering of half of the nitrogen load discharged in the lagoon through phytodepuration of the water by means of trees, which are more effective and cheaper than a depurator.
It is predicted that, once completed, the wood of Mestre will be able to guarantee the sustainable equilibrium of an area of over 150.000 people by retaining nearly 100.000 tons of CO2/year (almost 6 times the emissions released each year by vehicular traffic).
Environmental compensation, cleaning up, energy savings, renaturalization of soil and water, hydro protection, biomass production are just a few of the environmental and economic effects of the project managed by Venice Municipality through the Istituzione Bosco di Mestre (Wood of Mestre Institution).