Impacts of Air Quality and Climate Change on Vegetation

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Biometeorology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2019)

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Mathematics and Physics, Catholic University of Brescia, I-25121 Brescia, Italy
Interests: atmospheric pollution; atmospheric chemistry and physics; ozone and particle deposition; negative effects on vegetation; exposure and dose; risk assessment
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Guest Editor
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Bangor, UK.

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Guest Editor
Ecotoxicology of Air Pollution, CIEMAT, Madrid, Spain
Interests: tropospheric ozone; atmospheric nitrogen deposition; risk assessment; climate change
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Atmospheric pollution is known to negatively affect vegetation at different levels, from cells to ecosystems. A multitude of plant’s responses have been described, ranging from the impairment of some biochemical pathways to an overall reduction of plant productivity, with relevant economic concern for crop production and forestry.

Some species can be more sensitive to air pollution than others, and this could affect a plant’s competition in the ecosystems and biodiversity. Again, deposition fluxes of airborne pollutants can impair nutrient cycles of the ecosystems with special regards to the carbon and nitrogen ones. Different pollutants follow different deposition and uptake pathways. However not all the total amount of pollutant deposited on an ecosystem is uptaken by plants, while only the uptaken fraction led to the phytotoxycally-active dose. This is clear, e.g., for ozone, where only the stomatal uptake is relevant to describe the magnitude of the negative effects on vegetation. On the other hand, the correct identification and assessment of the non-stomatal pathways are quite important to quantify the bioavailable amount of pollutant and because they may affect many other ecosystem functions.

Climate interacts with the uptake processes in different ways, for example by affecting the stomatal openings through the availability of water for plants. The climate changes foreseen for the near future will likely affect both the plants’ uptake and plant’s response to the air pollutants in many areas of the world.

This Special Issue welcomes studies from many part of the world on the aforementioned topics. Contributions may range from experiments and investigations on dose–effect relationship for different types of vegetation to model assessment of air pollution impacts on regional or continental areas, from direct measurements of deposition fluxes of airborne pollutant in different ecosystems to the development of mechanistic description of the different deposition processes for models development and improvement. Contributes from areas of the world that are poorly covered by these studies are particularly encouraged.

Dr. Giacomo Gerosa
Dr. Felicity Hayes
Dr. Ignacio González Fernández
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • atmosphere-vegetation interactions
  • air pollutants
  • particulate matter
  • ozone nitrogen carbon fluxes
  • climate change
  • water availability
  • deposition measurements
  • deposition modeling
  • plants’ uptake
  • dose-effect relationship
  • multipollutant interactions and effects

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

17 pages, 28862 KiB  
Article
Vegetation Dynamics and Diverse Responses to Extreme Climate Events in Different Vegetation Types of Inner Mongolia
by Li Na, Risu Na, Jiquan Zhang, Siqin Tong, Yin Shan, Hong Ying, Xiangqian Li and Yulong Bao
Atmosphere 2018, 9(10), 394; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos9100394 - 11 Oct 2018
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 4311
Abstract
As the global climate has changed, studies on the relationship between vegetation and climate have become crucial. We analyzed the long-term vegetation dynamics and diverse responses to extreme climate changes in Inner Mongolia, based on long-term Global Inventory Monitoring and Modelling Studies (GIMMS) [...] Read more.
As the global climate has changed, studies on the relationship between vegetation and climate have become crucial. We analyzed the long-term vegetation dynamics and diverse responses to extreme climate changes in Inner Mongolia, based on long-term Global Inventory Monitoring and Modelling Studies (GIMMS) NDVI3g datasets, as well as the eight extreme precipitation indices and six extreme temperature indices that are highly correlated with the occurrence of droughts or floods, heat or cold temperature disasters, and vegetation growth in Inner Mongolia. These datasets were analyzed using linear regression analysis, the Hurst exponent index, residual analysis, and the Pearson correlation analysis. The results showed the following: (1) The vegetation dynamical changes exhibited trends of improvement during 1982 to 2015, and 68% of the vegetation growth changes in Inner Mongolia can be explained by climate changes. (2) The extreme precipitation indices exhibited a slight change, except for the annual total wet–day precipitation (PRCPTOT). The occurrence of extreme cold temperatures showed a significant decline, while the occurrence of extreme warm temperatures showed an upward trend in Inner Mongolia. (3) The typical steppe, desert steppe, and forest steppe regions are more sensitive to extreme large precipitation, and the forest regions are more sensitive to extreme warm temperatures. (4) Extreme precipitation exhibits a one-month lagged effect on vegetation that is larger than the same-month effects on the grassland system. Extreme temperature exhibits same-month effects on vegetation, which are larger than the one-month lagged effects on the forest system. Therefore, studies of the relationship between extreme climate indices and vegetation are important for performing risk assessments of droughts, floods, and other related natural disasters. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Air Quality and Climate Change on Vegetation)
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