Biological Monitoring of Air Pollutants and Its Influence on Human Beings

Abstract

Monitoring air pollutants via plants is an economic, convenient and credible method compared with the traditional ways. Plants show different damage symptoms to different air pollutants, which can be used to determine the species of air pollutants. Besides, pollutants mass concentration scope can be estimated by the damage extent of plants and the span of polluted time. Based on the domestic and foreign research, this paper discusses the principles, mechanism, advantages and disadvantages of plant-monitoring, and exemplifies plenty of such plants and the minimum mass concentration and pollution time of the plants showing damage symptoms. Finally, this paper introduces the effects of air pollutants on immune function of the human body, such as decrease of the body's immune function, decline of lung function, respiratory and circulatory system changes, inducing and promoting human allergic diseases, respiratory diseases and other diseases.