Vegetal biomonitoring of the air quality in Ribeirão Preto - SP

Abstract

Ribeirão Preto (SP) occupies one of the first positions in the state economic development ranking; however, it presents a huge social-environment and sanitary problem because of the constants burning of sugar cane's straw, which undertakes air quality and the population's health. The air quality monitoring is carried out by two stations of Cetesb, which can be complemented by the use of vegetal biomonitoring, important as much for its physiological sensitivity, as for the low cost and low complexity. This project aims to evaluate the Ribeirão Preto's air quality and its relation to the population's morbidity due respiratory diseases, from 2001 to 2011. The research, which has experimental and exploratory-descriptive character, will be developed with experiments in three points of the city, with different social-environment characteristics. In each point, two potencial vegetal bioindicators of air pollution (Tibouchina pulchra and Tradescantia pallida), will be displayed in the dry and rainy season. Morphophysiological and growth parameters analyses will be made to compare the degree of plants' fitotoxicity by experimental methodologies tested and described in scientific literature. The impact of air pollution in the population's health will be evalueted by the morbidity due to respiratory diseases, from Datasus data. This research can bring an important contribution to incorporate new technologies in the air quality monitoring and control, and in health and environment political-administrative processes. (AU)