THE IMPACT OF VEHICLE EMISSIONS ON SUSTAINABILITY OF BALSAM POPLAR (POPULUS BALSAMIFERA) IN THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT OF KRASNOYARSK

Abstract

Air pollution is one of the most urgent problems of urbanized territories. The quality of atmospheric air depends to a large extent on the volume and characteristics of the contaminants entering into it from stationary and mobile pollution sources. According to the State Reports “On State and Protection of Environment in the Krasnoyarskiy Krai” the air pollution rate in Krasnoyarsk has been remaining very high for the last decade. When assessing the environmental quality, biological methods should be used integrally with physical and chemical ones, since the state of living organisms allows foreseeing changes in natural ecosystems. In that way, the method of bioindication, which is widely used in population-based studies, is based on defining the state of trees through morphometric characteristics of their laminas. The phenomenon of fluctuating asymmetry in laminas is mainly associated with destabilization in its development under certain external factors, especially the anthropogenic ones. At the same time, the degree of asymmetry depends on the factor’s impact: the higher the anthropogenic load, the higher integral index (FA). This method is widely used to assess the urban environment health, using different indicator classes. Leading researches aim the anthropogenic impact of stationary pollution sources, while recently the lowest atmospheric layers in the city have been significantly polluted by mobile sources (50% of gross contaminant emissions). In this regard, we target a sampling area far from any stationary pollution sources. For an indicator we need a widely accepted tree used in urban landscaping – balsam poplar (Populus Balsamifera). The FA integrated indicator is calculated on 15 trees located in the zone of active motorway pollution for which traffic and emissions intensity has been determined as well. The average value of this integral indicator on sustainability for the poplars in the zone of active pollution corresponds to 5 points according to Zakharov index and defines the balsam poplars’ state as "critical". The received data prove the dependence of the FA integral indicator for the poplars’ laminas on the level of air pollution by the road transport given that this highway is characterized by a dense traffic accompanied by spring-summer traffic jams and a large volume of emissions.