2025 Internship Project Overview

Forest carbon sequestration is crucial for mitigating climate change. Following the die-off of stone pines in Castel Porziano, this study compares the impacts of rewilding and reforesting on net CO2 exchange in two test plots over the first five years.

Using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), we quantified emissions associated with both land management strategies. This involved a detailed accounting of machinery use and their specifications, integrated with data from the EcoInvent database via OpenLCA.

To complement the LCA, we employed the Eddy Covariance method and sensors in each plot to measure real-time CO2 fluxes. The data were cleaned, quality-checked and temporally averaged to estimate net ecosystem carbon exchange per hectare over the five-year period.

Unlike previous studies that inferred sequestration from biomass measurements alone, our methodology collects dynamic, real-time CO2 exchange.

This study captures the critical window when ecosystem management is most emissions-intensive and regrowth is quickest. The results and the integrated methodology offer valuable insights for land restoration policy.

ORGANIZATION/RESEARCH GROUP

National Research Council of Italy, Research Institute on Terrestrial Ecosystems (CNR-IRET)

LOCATION

Porano, Italy

 

Interns

John “Emmett” Souder ’27
Major: Operations Research and Financial Engineering
"Beyond technical skills, I gained insight into the dynamics of the international scientific community—how research collaborations are structured, how expertise is shared across borders, the practical realities of conducting field-based environmental studies, and the importance of communication across disciplinary and cultural boundaries."
Tamyca Tunis ’27
Major: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Minor(s): Sustainable Energy, Urban Studies
"My internship introduced me to life cycle thinking and assessment, revealing a new paradigm for understanding the environmental impact of a product. It was particularly rewarding to uncover a gap in the research field and how my research addresses it."

 

Gabriele Guidolotti
Researcher, CNR

Mentors

  • Benedetto Rugani, Researcher, CNR