MAPPING OF MAIN SOURCES OF POLLUTANTS AND THEIR TRANSPORT IN THE VISEGRAD SPACE PART I: EIGHT TOXIC METALS Report of the expert group on bio-monitoring the atmospheric deposition loads in the Visegrad countries PROJECT 11007-2006-IVF VÚKOZ FMFI KU ÚKE SAV IB PAN FEAS SIU Ivan Suchara Matej Florek Barbara Godzik Blanka Maňkovská Gyula Rabnecz Julie Sucharová Zoltán Tuba Paweł Kapusta Printed in 2007 Výzkumný ústav Silva Taroucy pro krajinu a okrasné zahradnictví, v. v. i., Průhonice, Czech Republic Mapping of main sources of pollutants and their transport in the Visegrad space Part I: Eight toxic metals Report of the expert group on bio-monitoring the atmospheric deposition loads in the Visegrad countries. The evaluation of results from the international bio-monitoring campaign 2000 and the preparation for print was carried out in the frame of the project 11007-2006-IVF. The works on the project and the printing of this report was financially supported by: International Visegrad Fund, Bratislava, SILVA TAROUCA Institute for Landscape and Ornamental Gardening, Průhonice, Czech Republic, Institute of Landscape Ecology, Slovak Academy of Science, Bratislava, Slovak Republic, Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Information, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovak Republic, Department of Ecology, Institute of Botany, Polish Academy of Science, Kraków, Poland, Faculty of Environmental and Agricultural Sciences, SZENT ISTVÁN University, Gödölő, Hungary. Authors: Ivan Suchara – project coordinator Matej Florek Barbara Godzik Blanka Maňkovská Gyula Rabnecz Julie Sucharová Zoltán Tuba Paweł Kapusta Graphical procession of maps: Juraj Lieskovský, Pavol Kenderessy Revision of English: Zuzana Al-Attasová Publisher: SILVA TAROUCA Research Institute for Landscape and Ornamental Gardening, Průhonice, Czech Republic Print: KLEMO spol. s r. o., (Ltd.), Zvolen, Slovak Republic Cover photographs provided by I. Suchara and B. Godzik This report should be cited as: Suchara I., Florek M., Godzik B., Maňkovská B., Rabnecz G., Sucharová J., Tuba Z., Kapusta P. (2007): Mapping of main sources of pollutants and their transport in the Visegrad space. Part I: Eight toxic metals.- Expert group on bio-monitoring the atmospheric deposition loads in the Visegrad countries, Průhonice, Výzkumný ústav Silva Taroucy pro krajinu a okrasné zahradnictví, v. v. i., 127 pp. © Expert group on bio-monitoring the atmospheric deposition loads in the Visegrad countries, 2007 ISBN 978-80-85116-53-3 (brož.) ISBN 978-80-85116-55-7 (soubor) ISBN 978-80-85116-54-0 (2. sv., CD-ROM) Printing 500 September 2007 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………………………….… 4 2. THEORETICAL PART .......................................................................................................................... 5 2.1 Air pollution …………………………….…………………………………………………………... 5 2.1.1 Sources of air pollution ………………………………………………………………………….. 5 2.1.2 Atmospheric deposition and harmful effects ……………………………………………………. 5 2.1.3 Air pollution and international conventions ……………………………...……………………… 7 2.1.4 Monitoring the air pollution and effects …………………………………………………………. 8 2.2 Mosses – bioindicators of atmospheric deposition loads ……………………………………….… 10 3 VISEGRAD SPACE AND AMBIENT AIR QUALITY ……………………………………………… 13 3.1 Short introduction of the Visegrad Group …………………………………………………………. 13 3.2 Air quality monitoring practices …………………………………………………………………... 20 3.3 Bio-monitoring campaigns in V4 ………………………………………………………………….. 28 4. EXPERIEMTAL PART …………………………………….…………………………………………. 32 4.1 Aims of the project ………………………………………………………………………………….. 32 4.2 Material and Methods ……………………………………………………...………………………. 32 4.2.1 Sampling plots …………………………………………………………………………………… 32 4.2.2 Collection and processing of samples …………………………………………………………… 40 4.2.3 Determination of elements ………………………………………………………………………. 41 4.2.4 Processing of results …………………………………………………………………………….. 42 4.3 Results and discussion ……………………………………..……………………………………….. 43 4.3.1 Cadmium ………………………………………………………………………………………… 44 4.3.2 Chromium ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 50 4.3.3 Copper …………………………………………………………………………………………… 55 4.3.4 Iron ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 59 4.3.5 Nickel ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 63 4.3.6 Lead ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 67 4.3.7 Vanadium ………………………………………………………………………………………... 72 4.3.8 Zinc ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 76 4.4. Correlation and cluster analyses …………………………………………..……………………… 81 4.5 Factors affecting the element content in moss ……………………….….………………………… 85 4.6 Comparison with other countries ………………………………………………………………….. 87 4.7 Evaluation and utilization of results …………………………………………………….………… 88 5 CONCLUSIONS ………………………………………………………………………………………… 96 6 REFERENCES ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 97 Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………………………... 105 Executive summary ………………………………….……………………………….…………………. 106 Streszczenie ................................................................................................................................................ 107 Souhrn …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 108 Összefoglaló ............................................................................................................................................... 109 Súhrn …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 110 PICTURES (distribution of element content in mosses across the V4 countries and related data) referred in the Part I and in the Part II of this report are available together at the following address: http://www.vukoz.cz/dokumenty/publikace/MOMSOP_II.zip 1 INTRODUCTION Air pollution ranks among important environmental problems occurring in Central Europe and other early-industrialized parts of the world for about two centuries. Increased concentrations of air pollutants and associated high atmospheric deposition loads cause, beyond all doubt, health injuries, diminish forest and crop production, reduce biodiversity, recreational potential of the landscape, cause corrosion of the materials of technical objects, historical monuments and sculptures, etc. Increased deposition levels of nutrients trigger eutrophication, may cause extinction of extremely sensitive plant and animal species, disintegration of ecological stability of ecosystems, and so on. Moreover, atmospheric pollutants can be transported in the air to a long distance and fall down hundreds or thousands kilometres far away from their pollution sources. Toxic and hazardous elements from atmospheric deposition can be bound on surface of soil or forest floor humus particles and thus can become a hidden threat for the local environment, residents, recreational visitors, consumers of local food, etc. No wonder that the air pollution has become a global issue. Individual countries, their blocks and international associations have introduced air pollution regulation acts, registers of pollution sources and emitted amount of pollutants, institutions dealing with monitoring the air pollution and deposition levels. Governments support projects studying harmful effects of air pollution and introduction of remediation measures. The Visegrad countries (V4) included a co-operation into the field of environmental protection and risks as a separate article in the official Content of Visegrad Cooperation approved at the Prime Ministers’ summit held in Bratislava on 14th May, 1999. All countries of the Visegrad Group attend the international campaigns on biomonitoring the current levels of atmospheric deposition loads using moss analyses in the framework of the campaigns co-ordinated mainly by the Environmental Monitoring and Data Group, which operates in the Nordic Countries, and later by the co-ordination centre of the international programme UN/ECE ICP-Vegetation, in Bangor, UK. However, the distribution of the atmospheric deposition loads has been presented and commented in national reports, which are usually not so easily available. European surveys summarizing the biomonitoring results obtained from all participated European countries in five-year intervals have been very compressed and only about 10 obligatorily investigated elements had been processed in these surveys. Considerable amounts of the national biomonitoring data concerning many elements have been obtained. However, none of the reports evaluates the distribution of the atmospheric deposition loads of both the obligatorily and optionally investigated elements in the Visegrad space that has been compiled and presented up to now. Knowledge on the distribution of current atmospheric deposition loads in Central Europe is surely important, for example, for the localization of persistent major emission sources, an effective long-term utilization of landscape, protection of health, proper supporting of landscape remediation programmes, etc. That is the reason why participants of the grant 11007-2006-IVF decided to evaluate the national biomonitoring results in order to reveal current pollution sources and distribution of atmospheric deposition loads of 53 determined elements in the Visegrad space. However, the distribution of only 8 elements in mosses was detected in all V4 countries. In order to economize the limited support for presentation of the obtained results two reports are being edited in parallel. Printed report (Part I) presents evaluation of bio-indicated distribution of 8 toxic elements in the V4 countries. The second report (Part II) presented in CD form evaluates the bio-indicated distribution of atmospheric deposition loads of all 53 investigated elements,