An Assessment of Anticipated Pollution Index of Some Common Plants and Trees of Rohtak City of Haryana (india)

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Deswal, Meena Deswal, Pawan Duhan, Sandeep Singh Laura, Jitender Singh
Copyright Year	2019
Abstract	Urban air quality around commercial and residential areas in cities has been progressively deteriorating due to gaseous pollutants released by an increasing load of vehicular on the roads resulting in adverse effects on human health. Plants due to their gas exchange have capability combat gaseous pollutants. The Phytoremediation capability and capacity of plants has been studied through the use of Anticipated Pollution Index (API) and Air pollution tolerance Index (APTI). Apart from other factors, the ecological significance of each plant has been considered for evaluating the API. The present study was undertaken for 40 plants, Syzygium cumini, Menispermum cordifoliu, Albizia lebbeck, Saborium chinense Raf. Eclipta prostrate, Tectona grandis, Thevetia peruviana, Nerium oleander Linn, Pithecellobium dulc, Alianthus excelsa Roxb., etc.. Phoenix humili (3.65) and Calotropis gigantean (15.13) with highest APTI were found to be more tolerant to gaseous pollutants, whereas Syzygium cumini is anticipated to be better performer along road sides on the API score. Others plants found to be excellent performers were Thevetia peruviana, Tectona grandis , Grevillea robusta, Alstonia scholaris, Olea paniculata, Delonix regia, Casuarine equisetifolia, Pinus roxbughi Sarg . KeywordsAPTI, API, Ascorbic acid, Total Chlorophyll, Air pollution. © RASĀYAN. All rights reserved INTRODUCTION Air pollution is a major problem for world cities with ever increasing population and vehicular load. The released pollutants cause human and animal health problems and damage to the ecosystems. 1 Physical processes like winds and atmospheric lapse rates impact the pollutants through the horizontal and vertical movement of air. Wind causes the pollutants to disperse hence causing their dilution. Conditions like temperature inversion and stagnant air cause pollutants to concentrate near the surface. 2 High levels of air pollutants are observed in commercial areas and at a red light on road crossings, due to high density and slow movement of vehicles. Other than physical processes the plants mean to play an important part in the mitigation of pollution in the local environment. Plants through their functioning remove a significant amount of pollutants from the atmosphere. Plants have enormous, surface areas, which help harness various air pollutants, directly through absorption or adsorption processes or by deposition on the biologically active leaf surface area. The surfaces of leaves are colonized by microorganisms 3 , and have been reported to cause degradation of various organic pollutants. 4 On exposure to air pollution, physiological changes are exhibited by the plans followed by visible damage. 5,6 Plants are complex and their physiological response depends on different parameters and factors affected by pollutants. Tolerant species are affected least while sensitive ones get injured more by air pollution. Vol. 12 | No. 3 |1627 1640| July September | 2019 1628 ASSESSMENT OF ANTICIPATED POLLUTION INDEX Meena Deswal et al. Air Pollution Tolerance Index (APTI) has been used to analyze the plant's suitability for use under air pollution environment. 5 APTI is based on four biochemical parameters viz. Quantities of ascorbic acid, chlorophyll, relative water content and pH of the leaf extract. Ascorbic acid is an important reducing agent and it helps plants against oxidative gases like SOx, NOx, etc. which generate cytotoxic free radicals. 6 Ascorbic acid also plays a crucial function in the synthesis of the cell wall, cell division and defense 7 , so related to growth and maintenance of the plant. The chlorophyll content is related to the photosynthetic activity resulting in growth and accumulation of biomass. For air pollution, the degradation of the photosynthetic pigment can be used as indicator. 8 High pH may be responsible for efficiently converting hexose sugar to ascorbic acid 7. The presence of acidic pollutants in the ambient air the leaf ph is lowered. Reduced photosynthesis has been observed in plants at low pH. 9 High water content in plants indicates their drought resistance and helps maintain the physiological functioning in stress conditions on exposure to air pollutants. 10 So to determine the tolerance level of plants to air pollutants these four parameters have been used. Comparable results have been reported for the level of susceptibility of plants to air pollution indicated by their APTI values with the plant responses observed under controlled and field experiments 5 Higher the index value more tolerant the plant will be to the pollutants. For screening plants, according to their sensitivity level or tolerance, this index gives a reliable method. Landscape planners use APTI in selecting tolerant plants 11 which can act as natural sinks for gas pollutants. 12,13 Study Area This study has been undertaken in Rohtak city of Haryana state (India). It is the fourth largest city in Haryana and spreads over an area of 139.4 km 2 with a total population over 0.48 million (Fig.-1). It is the education hub of the state. Being part of the national capital, it is rapidly growing in terms of population and number of vehicles on the road (Fig.-2.) Traffic load is even higher due to vehicles passing from other cities and tractors from the surrounding rural areas. Fig.-1: Location Map of Sampling Sites in the Study Area.
Starting Page	1627
Ending Page	1640
Page Count	14
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
DOI	10.31788/rjc.2019.1235214
Volume Number	12
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://rasayanjournal.co.in/admin/php/upload/752_pdf.pdf
Alternate Webpage(s)	https://doi.org/10.31788/rjc.2019.1235214
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article