Assessment of air toxicity in the megalopolis of Krasnoyarsk using long‐term monitoring of suburban pine forests

Abstract

This article is part of the special series "Environmental Monitoring on Global and Local Scales." The series documents cases of the current state of environmental assessment and tracking using different approaches: in situ monitoring, geoinformation modeling, and risk-based assessment. The work was originally presented at the conference "Ecological Monitoring: Methods and Approaches," held September 2021 in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, and co-organized with the European and Russian-Language Branches of Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

Suburban Pine Forests as Bioindicators of Air Pollution

“…Rapid in the vigor state of pine forests in the last four years was revealed (Figure 4). The data for 2022 supplemented and confi rmed the trend towards the weakening of the forests in previous years reported earlier [3]. Stronger degradation was noted in pine forest B, in which discoloration of needles was noted earlier (since 2012) compared to pine forest A (since 2019) (Figure 4).…”

“…Each SPs included 200-250 trees; an individual number was assigned to every tree. In the SPs the inventory and morphological parameters were evaluated annually in 2002-2022 [2,3]: the dynamics of the vigor state and size (diameter, height) of each tree was recorded, the vigor state was assessed using a 6-point scale, the number of trees dying in 1 year was calculated, and a phytopathological analysis of discolored needles was carried out to confi rm or exclude damage by diseases or pests.…”

“…Currently, we conduct annual monitoring of the vigor state of pine forests exposed to industrial pollutants. In this review, we summarize earlier published results obtained in 2002-2021 [2,3] and recent updates of 2022.…”

Introduction to the Special Series “Environmental Monitoring on Global and Local Scales”

“…Suburban forests can serve to monitor anthropogenic air pollution. The work by Polyakova et al (2022) develops the application of suburban pine forests as bioindicators of air pollution in the vicinity of Krasnoyarsk, a large industrial metropolis of Central Siberia. The long-term observation of two forests revealed changes in several inventory and morphological parameters of pine trees, which were attributed to chronic exposure of the trees to industrial air pollution.…”