Long-term moss monitoring of atmospheric deposition near a large steelworks reveals the growing importance of local non-industrial sources of pollution

Abstract

Although air quality in Europe is continually improving, there are regions, especially in central and eastern European countries, where this trend has been unnoticeable and even reversed in recent years. To understand the possible reasons for the persistence of these pollution “hotspots”, we investigated the case of the Kraków region (S Poland) known for its heavy pollution caused by a large steelworks. In 1975, at the apogee of industrial emissions, atmospheric deposition of trace metals was evaluated in this area using moss Pleurozium schreberi as a biomonitor. The survey was repeated in 1992, 1998 and 2014. The collected data showed that air quality improved significantly over 40 years: the amount of Cd, Pb, Fe, Cu and Zn accumulated by mosses decreased by a factor of 10, 9, 3.5, 2 and 2, respectively. The downward trend continued for most metals throughout the study period, although the biggest changes occurred at the very beginning (1975–1992). This improvement was mostly due to drops in industrial production and the introduction of environmentally friendly technologies. At the end of the study (1998–2014), clear increases in the concentrations of some trace metals in moss were observed (overall or at some locations). Spatiotemporal variability of moss elemental composition suggests that this is the result of the recent emergence of new (non-industrial) sources of metal pollution, associated with the urban sprawl and intensification of agriculture. Since this process is unlikely to stop in the near future, air quality will deteriorate rather than improve.