scope:

Introduction

It is has been known for more than a hundred years that air pollution can lead to the accumulation of substances in plants. Investigations into such pollution induced accumulations reveal where pollution of ecosystems takes place and where risks to plants, animals and humans have to be expected.

The pollution induced accumulation of substances in plants depends on a multitude of endo- and exogenous factors (e.g. on the species or variety of a plant, its stage of development, on the soil conditions, on nutrient and water supply and climatic conditions). For the identification of pollution induced accumulation and especially for the comparison of pollution effects at different locations it is necessary to reduce the influence of these factors to a minimum. To achieve this such investigations are limited to certain plant species and the methods applied are standardised as much as possible (see also VDI 3157 Part 1). If investigations of substance accumulation in plants are highly standardised, they allow an evaluation of the character and extent of pollution effects. If the location of the stations is appropriate it is possible to identify the influence of emission sources from the different levels of substance accumulation in plants (AK Bioindikation, 1999).

The method of standardised grass cultures can be used to detect pollution induced accumulation of inorganic (heavy metals, sulphur, fluoride etc.) and organic substances (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), polychlorinated dibenzo dioxins (PCDD) and polychlorinated dibenzo furanes (PCDF)) in plants. It allows to determine the extent of the pollution effects and to assess risks to plants, animals and humans (Prinz et al., 1993).