Vegetal bioindicators of atmospheric pollution: a contribution to community health / "Bioindicadores vegetais de poluição atmosférica: uma contribuição para a saúde da comunidade"

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2004

RESUMO

Air quality in urban and industrial areas tends to present undesirable concentrations of contaminants, without the availability of a broad monitoring system, given the sophistication of conventional physical-chemical methods, which require high expenditure for implantation, operation and maintenance. These costs can be reduced by the adoption of the complementary biomonitoring methodology. Biomonitoring is an experimental methodology that allows us to evaluate the response of living organisms to pollution, including advantages such as: reduced costs; efficiency to monitor large areas over long periods of time; evaluation of chemical elements in low environmental concentrations. Measurements and registers by conventional air quality monitoring networks allow us to verify whether the standards and limits set by legislation, environmental agencies and human health promotion bodies are being respected. However, these measurements do not allow for immediate conclusions about the consequences of polluting agents for human beings. Thus, biomonitoring must be considered a complementary method for analyzing pollutant agents and can constitute a third information system, besides emission and environmental concentration inventories. This study aimed to identify, by means of a systematic literature review carried out by two peer independent reviewers, vegetal species (vascular, moss and lichen) that are used as bioindicators, in the period from January 1997 to June 2003, in experimental and observational studies, linking them up with atmospheric pollutant agents. Out of a total of 4,547 scientific studies on bioindicators, 279 studies about the use of vegetal atmospheric pollution indicators were preselected, published in English, Spanish and Portuguese. These studies were analyzed by means of two relevancy tests, resulting in the selection of 240 references and 154 full studies. Out of this total, after applying the two relevancy tests, we included 126 scientific studies from 34 different countries. The systematic review methodology allowed us to survey the knowledge resulting from academic experiments in this field of study, thus broadening the knowledge related to that theme. Results disclosed the use of 111 vegetal species, 63 of which belonged to the Angiospermae group; 11 to the Coniferophyta group; 15 moss species and 22 lichen species, related to the monitoring of one or more of the following atmospheric polluting agents: heavy metals, ozone, particles, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, fluorides, volatile organic compounds. Thus, we observed that there is a significant amount of this kind of studies, mainly in European countries, where the EUROBIONET project for biomonitoring atmospheric pollution has been implanted since 2000, based on test and biomonitor standardization. In view of the fact that certain bioindicators are already acclaimed or even validated for monitoring specific atmospheric polluting agents, we believe it is possible to install an environmental biomonitoring network in São Paulo State, starting from a joint and coordinated effort among universities, municipalities and the environmental protection agency, in cooperation with the existing conventional air quality monitoring network. This initiative will allow for another step in the universalization of natural and social environment care, promoting and guaranteeing improvement in the quality of life of current and future societies.

ASSUNTO(S)

biomonitoring air pollution biomonitoramento environmental risk evaluation vegetal bioindicator bioindicador vegetal avaliação de risco ambiental poluição atmosférica

ACESSO AO ARTIGO

Documentos Relacionados