Polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, phenols, and trace metals in selected soil profiles and plant bioindicators in the Holy Cross Mountains, South-Central Poland

Altitudinal and Spatial Signature of Persistent Organic Pollutants in Soil, Lichen, Conifer Needles, and Bark of the Southeast Tibetan Plateau: Implications for Sources and Environmental Cycling

“…9−14 These are particularly valuable for research in remote and poorly accessible areas such as high mountains. 15,16 Furthermore, large-scale vegetation, for example, forests, may have significant impact on the atmospheric concentration of POPs during the annual growth cycle of the plants. 17,18 The significance of forests in transferring contaminants from air to soil has also been widely documented.…”

Residues and source identification of persistent organic pollutants in farmland soils irrigated by effluents from biological treatment plants

“…There were plenty of research work focused on heavy metal accumulation and transfer between soil and water in farmlands that using wastewater or effluents from SPT for irrigation (Karvelas et al, 2003;Zheng et al, 2001;Zhu, 2001). Less has been known on persistent organic contaminants, which could also be accumulated in soils and transferred through food chains and consequently cause adverse health effects on human or biological effects on soil fauna and flora after long-term application (Blakely et al, 2002;Tang et al, 2002;Wang et al, 2003a,b;Migaszewski et al, 2002). In the past, few studies have been done on the potential accumulation of persistent organic contaminants in soils after long-term application of the effluents from SWTP.…”

Tree Bark, a valuable source of information on air quality

“…It is still not fully known how they interact in mixtures with other types of pollutants. Therefore, monitoring POPs emitted into the environment seems to be extremely important [12,25,50,[71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81].…”

“…Many PAHs exert toxic and even carcinogenic effects on humans, e.g., benzo(a)pyrene. The study of air quality based on, among other things, pine bark [25,74,76] or camphor [77] in both urban and industrial environments has proven that tree bark can be successfully used to assess the spatial distribution of ambient air PAHs. In a study by Rauert and Harner (2016), authors analyzed the bark of 5-15-year-old red pines and divided PAHs into fractions: alkylated-PAHs, nitro, and oxy-PAHs.…”

“…Assessing air quality based on plants can be done using two methods: analysing impurities accumulated by the plant and using the plant to observe changes (usually unfavourable) in the morphology or physiology of plants caused by pollutants, thus related to ecotoxicology [13,[19][20]. In a study of air quality, lichens and mosses are the most frequently used bioindicators, individual species of which can point directly to the degree of contamination, and special scales have been developed for such species [1,[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. Mosses and lichens may occur in all studied locations, but higher plants are often selected as suitable bioindicators.…”