Szkoła Eksploatacji Podziemnej

The rapid growth of cities, industry and transport has led to a significant deterioration in environmental quality, especially in the most densely populated areas. This applies to water, soil and, in urban areas, especially air. Combustion processes associated with industry, the municipal sector, but also transport are the source of a significant number of pollutants with heterogeneous chemical compositions. These include particulate matter, a mixture of solid and liquid particles with different diameters and chemical properties that are extremely dangerous to human health. Urban trees provide four existing categories of ecosystem services: provisioning services, regulating services, supporting services and cultural services, including air purification, heat mitigation, carbon sequestration, runoff regulation, biodiversity enhancement, noise reduction or landscaping and recreation. Of great importance is the capacity to absorb significant amounts of atmospheric dust, thereby improving air quality and helping to reduce, for example, the incidence of cardiovascular disease. This capacity is a result of the characteristics of the leaf structure, including its shape, surface area and the amount of wax produced.
The aim of this study was to assess the atmospheric dust-accumulating capacity of selected urban tree species. Three tree species commonly planted in cities were selected for the study: Tilia cordata, Acer pseudoplatanus and A. platanoides, and their ability to accumulate dust with particle diameters >10µm and diameters in the range 10-2.5µm was compared using a gravimetric method, divided into water-washable dust and dust collected in leaf waxes. The material was collected in the strict city centre and green areas away from urban emission sources, in Katowice, Poland. The plants studied differed in leaf area, with all species showing a significantly higher value for this characteristic in the green area and trees in the city centre accumulating more dust particles >10µm in diameter. The ability to accumulate dust varied between the species studied. The highest concentrations of dust particles >10µm in diameter were found in T. cordata. At the same time, A. platanoides accumulated the most dust particles with a diameter of 10-2.5um, which is probably related to the morphological characteristics of the leaf blades of these species.