MONITORING AIR QUALITY USING LICHENS IN CHELYABINSK, RUSSIAN FEDERATION

Abstract

Air pollution in large cities is one of the most serious ecological problems, because emissions always go into the atmosphere. One of the specific methods of pollution monitoring is lichen indication. The aim of the study is to evaluate the quality of the atmospheric air of Chelyabinsk city (Russian Federation). The results were obtained from samples collected in June-July 2015. The trees for the lichen sampling were chosen from the areas with different pollution levels: relatively clean, moderately polluted, hardly polluted. For the purposes of the comparison lichens were measured in Ilmen reserve, as the protected relatively clean territory. Using the method of lichen indication mapping we identified an indicator species Parmelia sulcate. Based upon epiphytic lichen distribution in sampling areas we distinguished several zones of atmospheric pollution: polluted zone, relatively clean zone, the cleanest zone. Lichen biodiversity and their projective cover are stated to decrease as the anthropogenic load is increasing. In urban and anthropogenic environment lichen population density is declining more intensively than the number of species. Also we measured elemental composition of lichens by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis. We have studied the presence of heavy metals. Zink oxide, chrome and mangan oxide rate in the samples from environmentally troubled areas near steel factories and the power plantis almost twice higher.