Prediction of Natural Volatile Organic Compounds Emitted by Bamboo Groves in Urban Forests

Abstract

Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, people in countries around the world including the United Kingdom, Denmark, Canada, and South Korea are seeking physiological and psychological healing by visiting forests as stay-at-home orders continue. NVOCs (natural volatile organic compounds), a major healing factor of forests, have several positive effects on human health. This study specifically researched the NVOC characteristics of bamboo groves. This study revealed that α-pinene, 3-carene, and camphene were observed to emit the most, and the largest amount of NVOC emitted was seen during the early morning and late afternoon within bamboo groves. Furthermore, NVOC emission was found to have normal correlations with temperature and humidity, and inverse correlations with solar radiation, PAR (photosynthetically active radiation), and wind speed. A regression analysis conducted to predict the effect of microclimate factors on NVOC emissions resulted in a regression equation with 82.9% explanatory power, finding that PAR, temperature, and humidity had a significant effect on NVOC emission prediction. In conclusion, this study investigated NVOC emission of bamboo groves, examined the relationship between NVOC emissions and microclimate factors, and derived a prediction equation of NVOC emissions to figure out bamboo groves’ forest healing effects. These results are expected to provide a basis for establishing more effective forest healing programs in bamboo groves.

A Modeling Approach for Quantifying Human-Beneficial Terpene Emission in the Forest: A Pilot Study Applying to a Recreational Forest in South Korea

“…On the other hand, studies that measured the terpene concentration in ambient air showed diverse diurnal patterns. Several studies that measured BVOC and terpene concentration in the ambient air showed diurnal patterns that were similar to ours [ 29 , 30 ], while other studies showed different diurnal patterns of high BVOC and terpene concentrations in the morning and before sunset and lower concentrations in the middle of the day [ 25 , 31 , 32 , 64 ]. Comparing the two types of results from other studies, the difference in diurnal terpene emission patterns between the two types of measurement scheme arises from the mixing effect related to wind speed and rapid chemical reactions with other materials in the air (e.g., ozone formation) [ 27 , 30 , 32 , 63 , 65 ].…”

“…Our method is based on the rate of emission of terpenes directly from trees, and the result differs from the concentration-based methods sampling ambient air. The therapeutic effect of forest bathing and inhaling terpenes is directly related to the terpene concentration in the ambient air, which is not only associated with the terpene emission rate from trees but also closely related to microclimatic factors, such as humidity and wind speed and direction [ 25 , 31 , 32 , 63 , 64 ]. Therefore, there is a need for a deeper understanding and consideration of the microclimate in order to estimate the spatiotemporal variation of terpenes directly affecting humans.…”

“…Park et al [ 30 ] and Jeong et al [ 31 ] sampled terpenes at several plots in therapeutic and recreational forests, focusing on the temporal variability of terpene concentration over the course of a day and by season. In addition, Choi et al [ 32 ] characterized the effect of microclimatic factors on BVOC emission in bamboo groves located in an urban forest in South Korea by utilizing multilinear regression analysis. According to their study, BVOC emission from bamboo groves was positively correlated with the air temperature and humidity but negatively correlated with the wind and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR).…”

Utilizing SIFT-MS and GC-MS for Phytoncide Assessment in Phytotron: Implications for Indoor Forest Healing Programs

“…As the health-promoting effects of the phytoncides emitted by plants are acknowledged, the demand for research on phytoncides is increasing. Several prior studies have been conducted to detect the phytoncide concentration emitted by forests and to investigate the effect of forest healing [4][5][6][24][25][26]. However, concerning forests, due to the nature of the outdoor environment, changes in phytoncide emissions are affected by various microclimate environments and abiotic factors [20,24,27].…”

Physiological and Psychological Assessments for the Establishment of Evidence-Based Forest Healing Programs

“…Depending on the type of forests and the species that make up the forests, it is known that the amount and type of monoterpene emitted differs. Generally, higher concentrations of monoterpene are produced in coniferous forests than in broadleaf forests [38][39][40][41].…”