The ICOS station at the Bosco di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy, received high-level guests in June, when the Minister of University and Research, Maria Cristina Messa, and the President of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) Maria Chiara Carrozza visited the station. The guests were hosted by Carlo Calfapietra, Director of CNR-IRET and Focal Point ICOS Italia and Sylvain Bellenger, the Director of the Capodimonte Museum.
In 2014, thanks to the PONa3_00363 project, the National Research Council (CNR) installed an up-to-date measuring station with the aim of measuring the exchanges of carbon dioxide, trace gases and atmospheric pollutants between the urban forest and the atmosphere.
Since 2014, the station has been part of ICOS RI. It measures flows and storages of carbon in the atmosphere, ecosystems and sea. This infrastructure is considered to be crucial in the context of the carbon neutrality priority of the European Green Deal and the Italian PNRR, National Recovery and Resilience Plan established to recover from Covid-19.
The station is part of a very limited group of stations in the world for the monitoring of the quantity of trace gases and it is, at the moment, the only one implemented within an urban green area such as that of the “Real Bosco di Capodimonte” district, in the municipality of Naples.
The station is being upgraded with the Pro_ICOSMed Infrastructure upgrade project with a total funding of approximately € 15M, € 3M of which is for the Capodimonte station.
Minister Messa, President Carrozza and Dr. Calfapietra committed to meet again in November for the ICOS event following COP 26 (this year under the joint Italian-English presidency) in which the Minister for Ecological Transition Roberto Cingolani should also participate. The event will focus on the contribution of ICOS to the negotiations on climate change and national strategies for carbon neutrality.