UK countryside in danger due to air pollution

The colourful countryside in Britain is in danger due to air pollution from car exhausts, industry, fertilizer and other mediums, according to a researcher from Manchester Metropolitan University.

Indeed, the professor investigated different plants and flowers from a variety of habitats to determine the affect of air pollution on the countryside.

According to him, it is air pollution that is causing a decline in plant populations.

This is not just happening in areas where air pollution levels are exceptionally high, such as cities. In fact, Dr Richard Payne and Professor Dise collaborated with the Open and Lancaster Universities to examine 153 European grassland sites.

Even in areas where low levels of pollution exist, such as the countryside or places away from man roads, the result is still a decline in plant populations, particularly wildflowers such as creeping buttercup, harebell, yarrow and autumn hawkbit, the examiners found.

“We studied many grasslands along the natural gradient of pollution across Europe,” said the professor of biogeochemistry.

“Our results showed that even at the cleanest sites, low levels of pollution affected the abundance of some plant species.”

What concerned the researchers was that some areas that were classified as safe in terms of levels of nitrogen were in fact found to have a decline in plant population owing to air pollution.

These new findings have prompted the researchers to urge the government for a change in the laws of what is legally recognised as safe levels of nitrogen.

“One of the drawbacks to previous studies is that most field experiments to establish limits on pollution are near the populated and polluted areas where most scientists live,” added Professor Dise.

“It may be that long-term exposure to even medium levels of pollution have already changed their ecosystems.”