VALORAÇÃO AMBIENTAL DAS ÁRVORES NO ESPAÇO PÚBLICO URBANO DE PONTA GROSSA – PR A PARTIR DA ANÁLISE EMERGÉTICA

Abstract

The present study aims to present and to analyze the stocks and the environmental services provided by forested public areas of downtown area of Ponta Grossa - Paraná, using the emergy analysis. The urban forestry is inserted as one of the main icons in defense to the urban environment, amenable to valuation. In this sense, the emergy analysis is presented as a methodology for environmental valuation that can offer an ecological approach in estimating values. There were accounted 2,293 trees located in 11 squares and 38 streets. For the application of emergy analysis there were considered flows of materials and services from the economy and nature's services. Embedded on the economic flows the equipment and hand labor related to afforestation and as natural flows, rainfall (including solar and wind), soil nutrients, and leaf litter from trees located in squares. To calculate the resulting products of the system there were considered the benefits derived from trees, such as biomass, air humidification and infiltration. From the results it can be seen that the system of afforestation of downtown increases with the age of the trees. The average value, considering the average age of 20 years of a tree, was 6.28E+14 seJ/tree, related to materials and services of the economy values (3.5E+14 seJ/tree) and for the services deriving from nature (2.78E+14 seJ/tree). These two components are considered internal flows of the system that become into benefits that resulted in 3.23E+09 J/tree. When analyzing the transformity for the afforestation system, there was obtained 1.94E+05 sej/J and when converting it into monetary values, there was obtained the average amount of 5,565.16 Brazilian Reais for a single 20-years tree, so it can be accounted how much it is the existence, considering the work of nature and society, of one tree to the system of urban forestry. It’s concluded that from the perspective of the emergy analysis, the nature labor shall be recognized and reinforced and the afforestation of Ponta Grossa downtown can be understood in terms of the valuation of all its attributes.