Kumulacja metali ciężkich i siarki w roślinach wybranych gatunków oraz glebie jako wskaźnik stanu skażenia środowiska terenów chronionych województw śląskiego i małopolskiego

Abstract

Plant cover of Silesian and Malopolska province was greatly devastated and deformed due to negative influence of industry and excessive urbanization. In result of this there are but few spots in this area which still managed to keep its natural plant cover. In Silesian province 48 objects undergo the reserve protection — in their flora leafy forests prevail. The actual state of plant preservation in the areas under protection is very different in this province. It was determined by many factors such as: the size of the object, size of the protection zone, distance from the industrial works and development of tourism. Another kind of ecological threat, most essential in the last few years is bad influence of industrial emissions of which the most dangerous are: sulphur dioxide, nitric oxides and finally atmospheric dusts containing oxides of heavy metals. The aim of this paper was to determine the degree of hazard in some selected nature reserves of Silesian and Malopolska province by emission of heavy metals and sulphur on the basis of research on cumulation of these elements in soil and the analysis of chemical structure of leaves and needles in several plant species. Plant and soil material came from the seven reserves situated in Eastern and middle parts of Silesian province and western parts of Malopolska province in which beech forests were characteristic of (“Bukowica”, “Góra Chełm”, “Las Murckowski”, “Lipowiec”, “Ostra Góra”, “Segiet”, “Smoleń” and Tenczynek Landscape Reserve). Heavy metals were determined by atomic absorption method while sulphur —by calorymetric one. Influence of pollution constantly causes accumulation of heavy metals which leads to the chemical degradation of soil. The amount of heavy metals under analysis in soil of the reservathion grounds increases proportionally to their contents in the falling down dust. In the reserves like “Segiet”, “Góra Chełm”, and “Ostra Góra” the threshold level of the amount of Pb, Zn and Cd for this type of soil was much exceeded. Physiological zink concentration in leaves usually balances between 20—120 pg/g, but the results obtained in this study showed great exceeding of these values in the majority of the reserves under investigation. The results of lead, sulphur and cadmium contents obtained in this study indicate, similarly as in the case of zink, greatly exceeded concentrations of them treated as normal for this type of plant material in the reserves of “Segiet”, “Góra Chełm”, “Ostra Góra” and “Bukowica”. Data indicating concentrations of copper and iron in the examined plant material showed that their values fall within the range of physiological concentration of these elements. As result from the obtained data the reserves under examination are under threat of cadmium, lead and zink overdose. It specially refers to the centrally located “Segiet” reserve right in the middle of the big urban aglomeration and also those situated towards North-East from the main emitters of the Upper Silesia Region reserve areas of “Góra Chełm” and “Ostra Góra”. In the remaining reserves of Silesian and Małopolska province ecological threat with such emissions seems reasonably smaller.