Authors: Lu Liu Dongsheng Guan M R Peart
Publish Date: 2012/05/22
Volume: 19, Issue: 8, Pages: 3440-3449
Abstract
Air pollution is a serious health problem throughout the world exacerbating a wide range of respiratory and vascular illnesses in urban areas The mass artificial plantation is very helpful to absorb dust and reduce pollution for conservation of the urban environment The foliar surface of plants is an important receptor of atmospheric pollutants Therefore selection of suitable plant species for urban environment is very importantThe dustretaining capability of urban trees in Guangzhou was determined at four different types of urban area and the morphological traits of their leaves such as wax cuticle stomata and trichomes were observed under a scanning electron microscopeIt was determined that the dustretaining capability of any given tree species is significantly different in the same place Of the four studied tree species in the industrial area IA and commercial/traffic areas CTA type urban areas the highest amounts of dust removed by Mangifera indica Linn was 12723 and 1482 g/m2 respectively However in contrast the equivalent maxima for Bauhinia blakeana is only 2682 g/m2 and 0720 g/m2 respectively Different plant species have different leaf morphology The leaf of M indica has deep grooves and high stomata density which are in favor of dustretained and thus their dustretained capability is stronger while B blakeana has the cells and epicuticular wax with its stomata arranging regularly resulting in poor dust catching capability Leaf size was also shown to be related to dust capture for the four studied tree speciesThe dust removal capacity of individual tree species should be taken into account in the management of greening plantation in and around an urban area It was also shown that temporal variation in dust accumulation occurred over the 28day observation period and this was discussed Furthermore spatial contrasts in dust accumulation were evidenced by the data This reflected the differing pollution loadings of the four urbantype areas The highest amount of dust accumulation was associated with the industrial area in which shipyard and steelworks occurred whilst the lowest dust accumulation was associated with the grounds of the University which was the control areaThis work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China No 40971054 The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support and help in collecting samples and finishing experiments from the Guangdong provincial Key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Control and Remediation Technology
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