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The Role of Trees in Ecotechnologies

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The Sustainable Role of the Tree in Environmental Protection Technologies

Abstract

This chapter presents the ecotechnological advantages of using trees. In this case, the ecotechnological application of trees is presented as the assessment of the role of trees within their vegetative period in ecosystems using mathematical tools. The chapter describes a method, created by the authors, of dynamic factors to assess biophilicity, bioavailability, bioaccumulation, translocation of chemical elements, and phytoremediation effects. Mathematical models of chemical elements (with a focus on metals) in the transfer system atmosphere–soil–tree–atmosphere–soil provide the possibility of predicting the load of contamination from both stationary and diffuse pollution sources entering the tree environment, the uptake and bioaccumulation of chemical elements in the main morphological parts of a tree, and the potential for using trees in phytotechnologies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The plant–soil coefficient expresses the relationship between metal concentrations in ash and the soil. In other words, metal concentration in a plant is recalculated in terms of biomass.

  2. 2.

    Several comparison levels of metal concentration in plants may be distinguished in (1) a direct comparison of metal concentrations in biomass (which would be misleading because the respective metal concentrations in the soil as a source of nutrients for plants are not taken into consideration), (2) bioconcentration (bioaccumulation) coefficients (the effect of higher or lower metal concentrations in soil upon their transfer and accumulation in plants is not taken into account), and (3) dynamic bioaccumulation factors taking into consideration the effect of metal concentrations in the soil of the control (background) and polluted territories on their transfer and accumulation.

  3. 3.

    The definitions and calculations of the dynamic factors are consistent with the data provided in Baltrėnaitė et al. (2012a, b).

  4. 4.

    The data used for dynamic factor calculations was selected from experimentally obtained results by choosing the most pronounced values of metals in soil and plant. Therefore, the metal concentration values from the investigated site that are used in the other chapters may differ.

  5. 5.

    The indices found in the biophilicity sequences correspond to biophilicity factors expressing the relationship between the accumulation of metals in living biomass and metal concentratio n in Earth’s crust with respect to world vegetation or soil of particular territories.

  6. 6.

    According to the requirements of ADMS4, only pollution sources more than 10 m high were studied.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Protect, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Edita Baltrėnaitė

  2. Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Pranas Baltrėnas & Arvydas Lietuvninkas

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  1. Edita Baltrėnaitė
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  2. Pranas Baltrėnas
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  3. Arvydas Lietuvninkas
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Baltrėnaitė, E., Baltrėnas, P., Lietuvninkas, A. (2016). The Role of Trees in Ecotechnologies. In: The Sustainable Role of the Tree in Environmental Protection Technologies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25477-7_5

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