Abstract

Among the woody and shrubby weeds colonising non-crop areas in the Apulia Region(South Italy), Ailanthus altissima (tree of heaven), an exotic invasive species, is one ofthe worst, because of its fast growth and root-sucker production. It reaches the heart ofprotected areas and spreads everywhere in urban and peri-urban areas creating densestands. As there are no official monitoring protocols for weed mapping, a method basedon real-time global positioning system (GPS) on satellite maps was set up. Due to thismethod, the distribution, spread, size, density and harmfulness of A. altissima wereassessed across the wide urban area of Bari (South Italy) by mapping all the individualplants and areas/stands of plants. In Bari, along a total of 76 km of roads mapped, 170very large (diameter .18 cm), 231 large (diameter 8-18 cm), 130 medium (diameter3-8 cm), 53 small (diameter , 3 cm) single plants, and 70 high, 63 medium and 13 lowdensity areas were detected. This indicated that A. altissima (tree of heaven) was verywidespread in the study area. Moreover, 35 types of damage or potential risks wererecorded covering functional, environmental, health and safety and aesthetic aspectsand then classified according to frequency and location. The real-time GPS methodproved to be very useful for providing a speedy and accurate record of the data.

Autore Pugliese

• Casella Francesca , Vurro Maurizio

Tutti gli autori

• Casella F.; Vurro M.

Titolo volume/Rivista

Arboricultural journal

Anno di pubblicazione

2013

ISSN

0307-1375

ISBN

Non Disponibile

Numero di citazioni Wos

Nessuna citazione

Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

Non Disponibile

Numero di citazioni Scopus

Non Disponibile

Ultimo Aggiornamento Citazioni

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Settori ERC

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Codici ASJC

Non Disponibile