Air quality improvement from plants

[sime42]

...go straight to Conclusions and Summary and you're there; 5 minutes reading
 
It includes 5 species of common houseplant (in the US) particularly good at pollutant absorption

Thanks. I'll trump you though! You can get there even quicker;- they're listed in the Abstract as well.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

3 minutes ago, sime42 said:

There appears to be some cross contamination between threads going on here.

My house is already full of plants, so I won't be rushing out to buy any. Though canny people don't spend a fortune on buying them anyway.

Interestingly dirty old Common Ivy is also in the top 5.
 

Brilliant - you call it cross ‘contamination’ I call it cross ‘pollination.’ 😂

[Stere]

Wonder about  the  claims made about  street trees of improving outdoor city air quality, they sound over-egged also.

 

The best trees to reduce air pollution

WWW.BBC.COM

---

Urban trees can help cut air pollution from New York to Beijing, but which trees do the best job? Future Planet weighs up the...

 

 

 

 

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

1 hour ago, Stere said:

Wonder about  the  claims made about  street trees of improving outdoor city air quality, they sound over-egged also.

 

The best trees to reduce air pollution

WWW.BBC.COM

---

Urban trees can help cut air pollution from New York to Beijing, but which trees do the best job? Future Planet weighs up the...

 

 

 

 

That's an interesting progression - I likey 😃

 

Likely, I'd suggest, that the macro impact is fairly undeniable - like Asian and Amazonian forest cover, continental and even national tree cover.  I wouldn't spend any time trying to challenge the positive effect of canopy cover at those sorts of levels.

 

But does it actually scale down to individual street tree?  I'd probably be content to loosely map across the apparent conclusions from house plants impact upon air quality (improving the physical / mental health, providing a pleasant environment etc etc) to the street tree level, although I'd probably need more convincing that each single tree makes a significant difference to air quality.

 

That said, I certainly endorse the approach that each tree matters since every woodland / forest must have started from a single tree and anything that raises public awareness and engagement at the lower levels is likely to be a good starting point for understanding and appreciating the larger scale.

 

Street trees benefit to air quality - like house plants, you'd need 1000s possibly 10s of 1000s / km2 to come anywhere near.  Making a nice street scene and regulating temperature - absolutely no argument with that!

 

(I had to change "Amazon" to "Amazonian" because the global lizard overlords auto inserted a hyper link to a proprietary online shopping platform - sneaky bar stewards)

 

(There!  It's happened again! Damn your lizard eyes!)

Edited September 13, 2021 by kevinjohnsonmbe

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

5 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

That's an interesting progression - I likey 😃

 

Likely, I'd suggest, that the macro impact is fairly undeniable - like Asian and Amazonian forest cover, continental and even national tree cover.  I wouldn't spend any time trying to challenge the positive effect of canopy cover at those sorts of levels.

 

But does it actually scale down to individual street tree?  I'd probably be content to loosely map across the apparent conclusions from house plants impact upon air quality (improving the physical / mental health, providing a pleasant environment etc etc) to the street tree level, although I'd probably need more convincing that each single tree makes a significant difference to air quality.

 

That said, I certainly endorse the approach that each tree matters since every woodland / forest must have started from a single tree and anything that raises public awareness and engagement at the lower levels is likely to be a good starting point for understanding and appreciating the larger scale.

 

Street trees benefit to air quality - like house plants, you'd need 1000s possibly 10s of 1000s / km2 to come anywhere near.  Making a nice street scene and regulating temperature - absolutely no argument with that!

 

(I had to change "Amazon" to "Amazonian" because the global lizard overlords auto inserted a hyper link to a proprietary online shopping platform - sneaky bar stewards)

 

(There!  It's happened again! Damn your lizard eyes!)

There!

 

My random, seat of the pants, man on the street, dullard predetermination is pretty much confirmed by Professor Paul Monks, University of Leicester and Chair of the AIR QUALITY EXPERT GROUP in his DEFRA (for DEFRA might as well read NFU) report "Effects of Vegetation on Urban Air Pollution."

 

 

https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/assets/documents/reports/cat09/1807251306_180509_Effects_of_vegetation_on_urban_air_pollution_v12_final.pdf

 

 

"...In summarising the effects of urban vegetation on ambient concentrations of particulate matter and gaseous pollutants, there are potential benefits of vegetation in changing dispersion and deposition processes and also potential problems. For dispersion, locally (tens to hundreds of square metres) the planting of trees may enhance or reduce dispersion; this redistributes pollution but does not remove it. 

 

...the magnitude of the reduction in concentration by realistic planting schemes, using trees, is small and in the range 2% to 10% for primary PM10 and ambitious plantings. For practical planting schemes and PM from all sources, the scale of reductions is expected to be no more than a few percent. For NO2, vegetation is not a very efficient sink, and as the deposition occurs in daytime, and primarily in the warmer months, there is little benefit for air quality for most of the time that NO2 is a problem.

 

...the specific contribution from city centre vegetation is too small to be isolated in modelling studies. Increasing tree cover in cities has the potential to increase BVOC emissions, with impacts felt through small increases in ozone and possibly aerosols downwind. 

 

...Of potential relevance to UK planting, oak, aspen and willow species should be avoided since these are estimated to being highest BVOC emitting species.

 

[Khriss]

5 hours ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Not a bad mantra for life really.... (unless the subject is C19 (and houseplants - apparently) 😂)

Of which yr the main culprit 😉 K

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

40 minutes ago, Khriss said:

Of which yr the main culprit 😉 K

That's a little harsh!

 

Granted, I did start the thread and I do throw in the occasional hand grenade, but I'm not going to accept the label of "main culprit!"

 

There are others far more qualified for that moniker than me Sir!

[Khriss]

24 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

That's a little harsh!

 

Granted, I did start the thread and I do throw in the occasional hand grenade, but I'm not going to accept the label of "main culprit!"

 

There are others far more qualified for that moniker than me Sir!

Yes, in retrospect,  it did just go on more than Mrs Doyle 😉 k