engleski

Assessment of Atmospheric Deposition and Ozone levels in Mediterranean Forest ecosystems

Forest ecosystems are characterized by strongly fluctuating conditions for tree growth and development. The Mediterranean region appears to be the most vulnerable to global change and atmospheric inputs. Mediterranean forest ecosystems in Croatia are highly significant almost half of Croatian total forest area. They provide multiple goods and services (water-related services, soil protection, and an exceptional richness in terms of biodiversity and unique non-wood forest products like aromatic plants, truffles, mushrooms, etc.) largely related to their environmental and social functions. The risk of impacts of air pollution, erosion, landslides and floods is being so high in this region. Combined with climate change, they are likely to affect nutrient turnover and nutrient availability, soil moisture and, ultimately, growth and primary productivity. These forests are ecologically very sensitive, because of its geographic position, complex orography, specific meteorological conditions and number of pollution sources. Wet deposition of atmospheric pollution contributes to an ecological imbalance of the whole ecosystem, including the sea itself. Therefore, the objective of the research is to establish and develop forest monitoring in Mediterranean forests that will give the unique possibility to analyze not only the biogeochemical cycle of elements but also the assessment of the environmental impacts of pollutants on forest ecosystems compartments from the sources to the receptors. Atmospheric deposition and ozone levels are measured together with a suite of other variables in order to estimate atmospheric inputs to forest ecosystem and identify the possible impacts of acid deposition and ozone on crown condition, tree nutrition and growth, soil and water availability, estimation of the present deposition loads and calculation of the critical load for nutrient N and acidity and to identify cause-effect relationships between physiological and chemical parameters of trees, forest condition, soil, meteorological parameters and atmospheric inputs by using different statistical tools.

forest ecosystems, forest monitoring, atmospheric deposition, ozone levels

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