Urban Air Pollution, Bioindication and Environmental Awareness

Clean air is an important condition for sustainable development and is a basic requirement for human health and welfare. Air pollutants also contribute to environmental problems such as acidification, eutrophication and global climate change, with impacts on health, crop productivity, forest growth, biodiversity, and the integrity of buildings and cultural monuments. Air pollution is a transboundary environmental problem which still affects wide areas of Europe and thus requires European solutions.Monitoring techniques are needed that address the physical and chemical aspects of air pollution as well as its adverse effects on living organisms and ecosystems. Bioindicator plants have proved to be effective and reliable tools for the detection and monitoring of air pollutant impacts. Besides, they feature several properties that qualify them especially for environmental communication and education. Thus, they are useful in communicating information on the state of the environment to the public and in performing environmental education programmes aiming at switching to more environmentally sound life styles. These were the topics addressed by the EuroBionet `Conference on Urban Air Pollution, Bioindication and Environmental Awareness¿. The present publication contains the contributions of experts from twenty countries giving an overview of the present state and the perspectives of using bioindicator plants in air quality control and environmental awareness raising in Europe and elsewhere.