Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Subcommittee on Mining, Forest Management, and Bonneville Power Administration
A detailed analysis of acidification effects on forest soil, rhizosphere and plant life and on the processes connecting them such as nutrient uptake and mineral cycling. Presents findings from the Solling project, an important long-term study on acid rain results in Germany's Black Forest, as well as other European forests which have experienced severe acid rain damage as a means of evaluating and predicting similar harm to U.S. forests.
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Subcommittee on Mining, Forest Management, and Bonneville Power Administration
During the last decade, forest decline has become increasingly apparent. The decline in forest health was often reported to be associated with air pollution. The present study on Norway spruce stands in the Fichtelgebirge analyses various processes interacting within forest ecosystems. It covers transport and deposition of air pollutants, the direct effects of pollutants on above-ground plant parts, the responses of soil to acid rain, and the changing nutrient availability, and the accompanying effects on plant metabolism and growth. The role of fungi, microorganisms and soil animals in the decline of these stands is also assessed. The volume is concluded with a synthesis evaluation of the influence of different factors, and their interactions on forest decline.
T. C. Hutchinson The NATO Advanced Research Workshop detailed in this volume was held in Toronto, Canada, in 1985. The purpose of the Workshop was to provide a "state of the art" report on our knowledge of the sensitivities and responses of forests, wetlands and crops to airborne pollutants. Approximately 40 scientific experts from nine countries participated. Most participants were actively involved in research concerning the effects of air pollutants on natural or agro-ecosystems. These pollutants included acidic deposition, heavy metal particulates, sulphur dioxide, ozone, nitrogen oxides, acid fogs and mixtures of these. Also invited were experts on various types of ecosystem stresses, physiologi cal mechanisms pertinent to acid deposition, and other areas that were felt by the director to be of direct relevance, including: effects of ethylene on vegetation, the physiology of drought in trees, the nature and role of plant cuticles as barriers to acid rain penetration, the use of dendrochronological techniques in reconstructing the time of onset and the subsequent progression of growth declines, the ability of soils to naturally generate acidity, the role of Sphagnum moss in natural peat land acidity, the use of lichens as indicators of changing air quality, and the magnitude of natural emissions of reduced sulphur gases from tropical rainforests and temperate deciduous forests. The Workshop included a series of invited presentations and subsequent group discussions. These presentations were designed to allow syntheses of our present knowledge as well as detailed questioning and discussion.
Author: United States. Congress. House. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Subcommittee on General Oversight, Northwest Power, and Forest Management
This book traces centuries of human use and abuse of forest ecosystems by discussing past decades of intense burning, grazing, and timber cutting that added to the natural acidification of the soil. Air pollutants and acids generated by industrial activities worldwide are also considered. Many forests in Europe and North America now receive as much as 30 times more acidity than they would if rain or snow were falling through a pristine atmosphere; ozone levels in many rural areas of Europe and North America are now regularly in the range known to damage trees. The book is organized into six sections, an introduction and bibliography of cited references. Major topic areas discussed include: (1) signs of forest destruction worldwide; (2) pathways of pollution that in most cases are traced back to sulfur and nitrogen oxides emitted during the burning of fossil fuels; (3) economic and ecological reality of forest destruction; (4) controlling emissions through requirements for effective technology; (5) international cooperation as an essential factor in controlling a wholesale continental pollution trade; and (6) the emerging realization of the potential economic and ecological consequences of acid rain and air pollution. (BC)