Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry, Università degli Studi di Padova, Viale dell'Università 16, Legnaro, 35020, Padova, Italy.
Department of Agriculture, Food, Environment and Forestry, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Via San Bonaventura 13, 50145, Florence, Italy.
J Environ Manage. 2020 Jun 15;264:110462. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.110462. Epub 2020 Mar 31.
Plants are continuously exposed to human air pollution, absorbing pollutants in their tissues. Trees can store pollutants in wood, in the annual growth rings, retaining traces of pollutants in the environment. Information on past pollution events are archived by trees, which dendrochemistry, a dendrochronological science combined with chemistry, is able to access. Many authors have suggested that trees could complement the conventional environmental monitoring: a forest archive of pollution events. However, the implications of trees occurrence in polluted areas on planning and management have not yet been discussed. In this article, we investigate whether forest archives exist and whether they should be integrated into the network of existing monitoring stations. We use a case study, the Veneto region of Italy, one of the most polluted areas in Europe, to examine the occurrence of trees around 28 industrial plants retrieved from a European pollution register. We propose planning actions to develop the latent potential of these forest archives for environmental monitoring, which society may benefit. We follow three steps: (a) assessing the cover and composition of tree canopies around the industrial plants, (b) inventorying the existing artificial air monitoring stations in order to discover whether pollutants around the industrial plants are already monitored, (c) assessing land use patterns in order to identify which are the receptors of air pollution and enhance the forest archive in the future. These spatial analyses are conducted in a 1-km radius buffer with the industrial plant as the centre. Results show that forest archives are available, with cover and composition suitable for dendrochemistry studies. Artificial monitoring stations are too far from industrial plants or have been installed recently, unable to provide historical data. Trees are an alternative source of pollution data. Receptors of air pollution include a diversity of urban, rural and agricultural lands, where forest archives can be managed and conserved through a variety of actions. Environmental protection agencies should value these trees, preserving them and accessing the records held in this forest archive. Similar inventories must be promoted in other industrialised regions of the world even at larger scales. Studies like this one should also be incorporated into landscape or urban planning processes.
植物不断暴露在人为的空气污染中，吸收组织中的污染物。树木可以将污染物储存在木材中，在每年的生长环中，保留环境中污染物的痕迹。树木可以通过树木化学（一种结合化学的树木年代学科学）来获取过去污染事件的信息。许多作者认为，树木可以补充传统的环境监测：污染事件的森林档案。然而，树木在污染地区的存在对规划和管理的影响尚未得到讨论。在本文中，我们研究了森林档案是否存在，以及它们是否应该纳入现有的监测站网络。我们使用了一个案例研究，即意大利威尼托地区，该地区是欧洲污染最严重的地区之一，研究了从欧洲污染登记册中检索到的 28 个工业工厂周围树木的出现情况。我们提出了规划行动，以开发这些森林档案在环境监测方面的潜在潜力，社会可能从中受益。我们遵循三个步骤：（a）评估工业工厂周围的树冠覆盖和组成，（b）清点现有的人工空气监测站，以发现工业工厂周围的污染物是否已经得到监测，（c）评估土地利用模式，以确定哪些是空气污染物的受体，并在未来加强森林档案。这些空间分析是在以工业工厂为中心的 1 公里半径缓冲区中进行的。结果表明，森林档案是可用的，其覆盖范围和组成适合树木化学研究。人工监测站离工业工厂太远或最近才安装，无法提供历史数据。树木是污染数据的另一种来源。空气污染物的受体包括城市、农村和农业土地的多样性，在这些地方可以通过各种行动来管理和保护森林档案。环境保护机构应该重视这些树木，保护它们并访问这个森林档案中保存的记录。即使在更大的范围内，也应该在世界上其他工业化地区推广类似的清查。还应该将此类研究纳入景观或城市规划过程。
