Abstract
Air pollution emissions were not continually monitored in the Upper Silesian Industrial District (USID), southern Poland, and data is only available for the last 20 years. Long-lasting and severe tree ring reductions in pines growing 5–20 km north of the USID area recorded particularly high levels of air pollution emissions in the period 1950–1990. Especially high amounts of reductions and many missing rings were found in the period 1964–1981. At the same time, pines growing 60 km west of the USID do not record deep ring reductions; this proves that the phenomenon is of a regional nature. Increases in infant mortality and lung, bronchial, and tracheal cancer morbidity rates among males were also recorded in the USID during periods of high air pollution. Infant mortality rates increased several years after the tree ring reductions. Therefore, it may be possible to use tree ring reductions as an early indicator of the occurrence of adverse effects on human health.
Highlights
Emissions of SO2, NOx, and other phytotoxic compounds lead to serious disturbances in tree physiology and metabolism (Farrar et al 1977), which are in turn reflected by a decrease in the width of annual tree rings
It was assumed that the variability of coal exploitation, and steel and electricity production reflected the relative changes in air pollution emissions in the Upper Silesian Industrial District (USID)
We developed a reference chronology for pines growing around 60 km from the Tarnowskie Góry Chemical Plant and the Miasteczko Śląskie Zinc Foundry (Fig. 3)
Summary
Emissions of SO2, NOx, and other phytotoxic compounds lead to serious disturbances in tree physiology and metabolism (Farrar et al 1977), which are in turn reflected by a decrease in the width of annual tree rings. Analyses of tree ring width reduction as a result of atmospheric pollution date back to the second half of the nineteenth century (Stoeckhardt 1871). It was demonstrated that the relationship between tree ring width and climate was different in trees growing near sources of pollution (Nash et al 1975; Juknys et al 2003). The studies of Vinš and Mrkva (1973), Thompson (1981), Kennedy-Sutherland and Martin (1990), Nöjd et al (1996), Juknys et al 2003, and Elling et al (2009) revealed different intensities of radial tree growth reduction depending on their distance from the pollution source and the amount of pollution emitted into the atmosphere
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