The Effects of Air Pollution on Plants around the Vicinity of the Delta Steel Company, Ovwian-Aladja, Delta State, Nigeria

Abstract

Air pollution is one of the serious problems faced globally today due to increased industrialization. Air pollution has been described as an additional stress on plants since they respond to it in the same way as they respond to drought and any other environmental stress. This paper studied the effect of air pollution on some physiological properties of some plants growing in the vicinity of the Delta steel company, Ovwian-Aladja, Delta State, Nigeria, using two sites; control(unpolluted) and within the vicinity of the steel company (polluted). The physiological parameters studied includes; leaf extract pH, total chlorophyll, relative water content, ascorbic acid content, soluble sugar and proline content. These variations can be used as indicators of air pollution for early diagnosis of stress as well as a marker for physiological damage to plants prior to the onset of visible injury symptoms. Plants at the polluted site showed higher physiological properties which is indicative of the fact that the plants made physiological adjustments to compensate for the environmental stress.