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Vacaresti Natural Park: vegetation mapping and tree inventory of an urban

wetland

Poster · April 2021

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.27428.19841

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 Vacaresti Natural Park: vegetation mapping
and tree inventory of an urban wetland
Authors: Bogdan MIHALACHE, Vladimir BOC, Cosmin PÂRLOG, Iustina TUDOR, Luciana ZECA
Vacaresti Natural Park Association, Bucharest, Romania

INTRODUCTION

Urban green spaces provide many ecosystem services (Millennium Assessment Report, 2005) to the community: re-
duction of air pollution clean and fresh air, regulation of high temperatures in summer via shade and transpiration, in-
terception of precipitation and prevention runoff to the sewer, carbon storage and sequestration, soil protection and
formation, biodiversity and habitat for the species, oxygen production, etc.
The objective of this study is to gain knowledge about the vegetation inside the Vacaresti Natural Park, the first Urban
Protected Area (UPA) of Romania in 2016 because it’s the biodiversity of the area that drives ecosystem functions
which bring benefits to society, such as: thematic spaces for ecological education (information and awareness raising
about the importance of nature in cities), visual amenity and the facilitation of recreation, mental and physical health.
The park has preserved its spontaneous vegetation, due to its 10m high concrete dam, reminiscent from the former
hidrotechical project that was abandoned 30 years ago at the fall of communism.
The main Research Question is: “What is the current status of the vegetation inside the Vacaresti Natural Park?”. To
answer this, we first identified the typologies and vegetation units and then undertook an inventory of the mature
trees inside the UPA.

Vegetation habitats and tree species mapping Ecological requirements

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Habitat mapping was done by characteristics such as tree diame-

classifying the degree of vegeta-
tion land cover (groves, dense
groups, isolated groups, herba-
ceous layer) and the degree of soil
moisture, evaluated according to
the type of encountered vegeta-
tion (mesophytes, mesohygro-
phytes, hygrophytes). The study
was done with a mix of field work
and remote sensing. The main
map was done in AutoCAD and
Illustrator.
For the tree inventory we deter-
mined all the tree species, their
spatial distribution and quantified
individual dendrometric
ter, tree height and their overall
health status. Tree Plotter TM Inven-
tory application (support.treeplot-
ter.com) was used for data collec-
tion and ecosystem benefit calcula-
tions.
The data were collected by park
rangers and volunteers between From the point of view of ecolog-
October 2019 and March 2021. ical requirements, the species are
Local literature (Ciocîrlan, 1990; Ili- divided into 4 categories:
escu, 2003; Pârvu, 2006) and previ- - mesophytes (area coverage:
ous studies (Anastasiu et al., 2017; 21,08%), covered with 63% of the
Doniță et al., 2005; Stoican et al., total number of trees in the park
2014) were consulted. Open-source The main mesophyte tree species
software like QGIS and R were used encountered are: Juglans regia,
in data analysis. Prunus cerasifera, Ulmus procera,
Ailanthus altissima and Morus
alba.
- hygrophytes (area coverage:
60,85%) that contain 31% of the
total number of trees and are
found in floodplains covered
with Phragmites australis. The
predominant tree species in this
type of habitat is Salix alba, along
with Salix matsudana 'Tortuosa'.
- mesohygrophytes (area cover-
age: 5,74%) occupy 6% of the total
tree individuals, and the two spe-
cies that fall into this category are
Populus x canescens and Eleagnus
angustifolia.
- hydrophytes cover 12.34% of the
surface, being composed exclu-
sively of herbaceous water loving
species, that were not inventoried
in this study.
The palustrine vegetation is pre-
dominantly composed of two
native water grasses species:
Phragmites australis and Typha an-
gustifolia, located mostly in the Eh
habitat, which has the highest cov-
erage in the park’s area: 68.9 ha
(44.06%). More than 90% of this
surface is covered with P. australis.

Native species percentage

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The study focused on the 156 ha area
within the concrete dyke. As a conse-
quence of the undertaken field inventory a
total of 29 tree species from 18 genera were
identified. The total number of individuals
is 4676. The most frequent species identi-
fied are: S. alba (25,30 %), J. regia (14,26 %),
P. cerasifera (11,29 %) and U. procera (9,17
%). These cover 60% of the park’s total tree
population and are native tree species, that
are expected to be present in an urban wet
land habitat and have emerged in the last
20-25 years. This is the average age esti-
mated for the oldest individuals. The dead
individuals were not inventoried.
Ailanthus altissima, an invasive species of
Community interest (Handbook of Alien
Species in Europe, 2009) is the most abun-
dant of the allochtonous species. Other ad-
ventive species are: M. alba, A. negundo, S.
matsudana 'Tortuosa', E. angustifolia, F.
pennsylvanica.

CONCLUSIONS

There is a high level of plant biodi- vegetation, thus, the necessity of

versity, with a high share of palus-
trine vegetation and a wide vari-
ety of tree species in the park. The
native species are dominant, but
the adventive ones, that were ac-
climatised here in the last century,
also occupy significant surfaces in
the park and even some of them
have the tendency to be invasive.
We also observed a tendency of
expansion of the dendrological
conservation, but also mainte-
nance works and control of the in-
vasive species is required.
If the research and the conversa-
tion continues and this Natural Park
is managed properly it has the po-
tential to become a success story of
how a former abandoned area can
become an urban wetland to the
benefit of both nature and society,
especially in highly polluted cities.

Air Quality Monetary

Benefit / year = 17610 $

Pollutants removed REFERENCES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This study was conducted with the
help of Văcăreşti Natural Park Associa-
tion - the founder of the protected area
and the partners of the Romanian Min-
istery of Environment in the park’s ad-
ministration- alongside its volunteers
and employees.
The study was part of a project in the
RO SMART în Țara lui Andrei program,
supported by Omv Petrom S.A.
View publication stats
per year = 8795 lb
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