Impact Simulation of Posidonia Oceanica (L.) Delile Planting for CO2 Storage in Lazio Region

This study aims to demonstrate the positive environmental and ecological impacts of transplant Posidonia oceanica on the seabed along the Lazio coast. Posidonia oceanica is a plant endemic to the Mediterranean: by being a plant and not an alga, it performs chlorophyll photosynthesis and carries a long series of ecological functions, including CO2 storage (about 4.4kg/m2) and oxygen release (about 14 liters/m2). Posidonia oceanica meadows are a 'blue carbon' storage habitat able to balance the atmospheric CO2 emission by mitigating ocean acidification providing a resource to respond to climate change. These kinds of habitats can store carbon for long timescales by constituting reservoirs to hold CO2 from the atmosphere. In this paper we show the impact of Posidonia oceanica meadows in balancing CO2 emitted by humans. By making estimates between the CO2 emissions per inhabitants of different centres at different scales (Ponza, Anzio and the whole region of Lazio) and the potential CO2 storage of different Posidonia beds, demonstrating how this could capture the CO2 emitted by the population of Lazio region. We estimated CO2 storage both in existing meadows and in meadows we assumed can be planted and then we calculated the possible percentages of CO2 reduction. The aim of the work is to evaluate at an analytical level the possible absorption capacity with a view to planting Posidonia oceanica meadows in the Lazio coast. The results we obtained are encouraging and can be the basis for continuing studies and experimentation in this direction.