Worker’s Metabolic Rate Assessment during Weeding

Green area management, as well as any other agricultural activity in general, is one of the working sectors where professional accident and disease occurrence is considerably high. The existing regulatory obligations take into account the worker’s welfare in a wide sense. However, a new attention is paid towards the ergonomic aspects beside the traditional risk agents. Among the factors affecting the worker’s psychophysical wellbeing, the aerobic metabolism engendered when carrying out specific duties in agriculture and the stress that goes with it constitute an important aspect. Through the evaluation of some functional parameters of the human body and by analysing the breathing values, heart rate and the amount of oxygen consumed during an activity, it is possible to determine the physical stress it is subjected to. Indeed, the present work focuses on this issue, and aims to evaluate the energy consumption of workers during a green area maintenance using a brush cutter, in order to assess whether the work carried out complies with the parameters set according to UNI EN ISO 8996. The experimental trial was made up of two men, whose average age was 30 years, with a body weight of 78 ± 2.00 kg, a height of 1.71 ± 0.15 m. The results of operators’ metabolic parameters recorded by the portable metabolimeter, while performing the green area management using a brush cutter, corresponded to a VO2 of 48.04 lO2h-1, a VCO2 of 43.32 lCO2h-1, and a heart rate of 98±17 beats per minute. The average operators’ metabolic rate (M) corresponding to 143 Wm-2 was in line with the tabulated values of energy metabolism at level 1‘screening’.