Arguments against more and better roads in many industrialized countries are based on land use by road construction adversely affects the environment, e.g. ground water formation, emission of air pollutants by road vehicles, emission of CO2 by road vehicles, noise emission by road vehicles. Related to the first three arguments, new ecophysiological compensation technologies based on better knowledge of activities and surface enhancement of vegetation and microorganisms will be presented. These can lead to reduced effects of emissions and simultaneously generate a pool for compensation activities. This can promote and facilitate new road construction, including especially broadening of existing roads. This includes improvement of water uptake capacity of soils by root technologies, and plant phyllosphere technologies for reduction of road traffic-related effects of emissions by NO2 and O3. Absorbic acid-rich plant organs and species are especially efficient in eliminating NO2 by formation of ammonia, and they thereby can reduce the impact of the NO2 -O3 cycle of road traffic-related pollutants. Road traffic in major European countries is responsible for about 20% of CO2 emissions. Mid- and long-term effective biological and geological CO2 sinks as forest production increases, deep-rooting grasses in prairie areas, coral reefs and general calcification techniques are evaluated and quantified, to be used to compensate traffic related CO2 emissions. Biological CO2 budgets and CO2 emissions from fossil fuel consumption are compared to estimate the potential for additional CO2 sinks. (A)
Samenvatting