Pollution Research Paper

ASSESSMENT OF AIR POLLUTION TOLERANCE INDEX AND EVALUATION OF AIR POLLUTION ANTICIPATED PERFORMANCE INDEX OF VARIOUS PLANTS AND THEIR APPLICATION IN PLANNING OF MORADABAD CITY, INDIA

ANSHUMAN GUPTA, MUKESH KUMAR, ANJU CHAUHAN, ATUL KUMAR AND ANAMIKA TRIPATHI

Abstract

Extenuation of industrial and traffic air pollution is a big challenge to retain biodiversity and ecosystem and in such scenario, screening of plants as biomonitor is extremely significant. The present study has been designed to evaluate the Air Pollution Tolerance Index (APTI) and Anticipated Performance Index (API) of ten common plant species, Alstonia scholaris, Azadirachta indica, Cassia siamea, Ficus rumphii, Pterospermum acerifolium are tree species and Calotropis gigantea, Nerium odorum, Ocimum tenuiflorum and selected shrub and Tinospora cordifolia and Antigonon leptopus are vines. Various biochemical parameters including leaf-pH, relative leaf water content, total chlorophyll content, and ascorbic acid content have been analyzed to compute the APTI values of the experimental plant species. The botanical and socioeconomic indices like plant height, canopy structure, and type of the plants, laminar characteristics, texture, hardness and economic values have also been studied and graded to evaluate the API of given plant species. Depending upon the intensity of a specific parameters characteristics gradings have been allotted (+ or –) to all the plants species under study. The results clearly indicate that biochemical parameters and APTI vary significantly (p<0.05) among tree species and research sites. Ficus rumphii with 6 (82.35%) API is an excellent performer for green belt development and advised to grow in various industrial cities of country. Alstonia scholaris with and Azadirachta indica with 3 API and has been considered a Moderate performer. The species of Cassia siamea, Pterospermum acerifolium, Tinospora cordifolia and Antigonon leptopus represented 2 API values show poor performance. All other investigated trees, ornamental shrubs and vines demonstrated very poor performance and hence not recommended for urban cultivation.