Evidences and implications of vegetation damage from ceramic industrial emission on a rural site in the Pearl River Delta of China

Abstract

Community structure characteristics and vegetation damage degree were investigated and analyzed in a forest around village, which had been long term exposed to ambient atmospheric pollution stress, to study the influence of airborne pollutant emissions from the concentrated ceramic industries on vegetation. Field survey was carried out in a semi-natural secondary forest on hilly land, Nanhai District of Guangdong Province, for the tree layer in ten quadrates with the total area of 10×(10 m×10 m), and for shrub and herb layers in eight subquadrates with the total area of 4×(5 m×5 m). Results showed that exotic Eucalyptus exserta and Eucalyptus urophylla were dominated over the community, followed by native tree species, Schefflera octophylla and Bambusa gibba, with the importance value (Iv) of 26.75, 17.08, 16.27 and 11.50, respectively. Among all tree species, Eucalyptus exserta and Pinus massoniana were most severely damaged with nearly 100% damaged rate. Bambusa gibba and Dalbergia balansae were injured with damaged rate of 85.1%–68.3%, however, Eucalyptus urophylla, Celtis sinensis, Helicia cochinchinensis, Cinnamomum burmanni and Vitex negundo revealed moderate injuries (45%–57.5%). Most of other indigenous species including Schefflera octophylla, Viburnum odoratissimum, Desmos chinensis, etc. showed less injured symptoms under the pollution stress. Compared with species in tree layer, damages of undergrowths were largely less. These results suggested that attention and concern should be paid on those introduced Eucalyptus species which had ever been widely used for forest restoration in degraded hilly lands of south China since 1970–1980s, due to their fast growing aspect. The results also demonstrated the potentials and perspectives by developing native species as target plants for restoration of degraded area at similar polluted location, which may provide scientific base for scientists to study and understand the functional aspects of native species and process-based interactions with pollution stress.