Air Quality during New Year’s Eve: A Biomonitoring Study with Moss

Abstract

Mosses are one of the best bioindicators in the assessment of atmospheric aerosol pollution by heavy metals. Studies using mosses allow both short- and long-term air quality monitoring. The increasing contamination of the environment (including air) is causing a search for new, cheap and effective methods of monitoring its condition. Once such method is the use of mosses in active biomonitoring. The aim of the study was to assess the atmospheric aerosol pollution with selected heavy metals (Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Hg and Pb) from the smoke of fireworks used during New Year’s Eve in the years 2019/2020 and 2020/2021. In studies a biomonitoring moss-bag method with moss Pleurozium schreberi (Willd. ex Brid.) Mitt. genus Pleurozium was used. The research was conducted in the town Prószków (5 km in south direction from Opole, opolskie voivodship, Poland). The moss was exposed 14 days before 31 December (from 17 to 30 of December), on New Year’s Eve (31 December and 1 January) and 2 weeks after the New Year (from 2–15 January). Higher concentrations of analysed elements were determined in samples exposed during New Year’s Eve. Increases in concentrations were demonstrated by analysis of the Relative Accumulation Factor (RAF). The results indicate that the use of fireworks during New Year’s Eve causes an increase in air pollution with heavy metals. In addition, it was shown that the COVID-19 induced restrictions during New Year’s Eve 2020 resulted in a reduction of heavy metal content in moss samples and thus in lower atmospheric aerosol pollution with these analytes. The study confirmed moss usefulness in monitoring of atmospheric aerosol pollution from point sources.

One year of active moss biomonitoring in the identification of PAHs in an urbanized area—prospects and implications

“…Therefore, we have dispensed with such analyses (such as fluorescence and chlorophyll content testing) in this study. In our other work on biomonitoring with mosses carried out throughout, e.g., 3 months, we present the results of studies on, e.g., the vitality of mosses during their exposure (Świsłowski et al 2021e , 2022 ).…”

Is Active Moss Biomonitoring Comparable to Air Filter Standard Sampling?

“…The monthly rainfall was 35.6 mm, 18.6 mm and 37.4 mm respectively, for the studied exposure months [87]. In previous studies, we have shown how important it is to consider the influence of environmental conditions on the accumulation of heavy metals by mosses [88,89].…”

Level of atmospheric air pollution with heavy metals in the influence zone of coal industry enterprises (Berezovsky)

“…The difficulty in assessing air pollution caused by fine particulate matter containing HM is due to their relatively low concentrations. In such cases, large observation periods are required to obtain reliable results, which can be achieved through bioindication methods [6][7][8][9].…”