Detrimental effects of Road dust on plants and its environmental impacts

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Research Paper 01/01/2020
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Detrimental effects of Road dust on plants and its environmental impacts

Allah Nawaz Khan, Farzana Rafiq, Muhammad Asif Akram, Muhammad Sufyan, Naila Fida Hussain, Muhammad Tayyab Shaheen, Shazia Iqbal, Sobia Sohail, Hafiz Muhammad Shahbaz
Int. J. Biosci.16( 1), 162-167, January 2020.
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Abstract

Present study was conducted to investigate the Road dust effects on plant communities along with bad impact on our environment. Plants are important source of oxygen and they maintain the natural ecosystem. Plants communities along the roads are important for the beauty and they play key role for environment. Dust due to road traffic is big issue in many countries of the word especially where annual rainfall is low. Plants clean the environment on the road by capturing road dust that comes with wind or by road traffic but in this case they are partially or completely occupied by road dust that produces serious injuries like reduce in size, leaf falling and their stomata don’t function properly and hence loss in transpiration and plant may die. Road dust contains many heavy metals due to road traffic and their deposition on plants is alarming. Study surveys were conducted on the Main Mianwali Banu Road during May 2018 to June 2019 a total 100 plant species were recorded consist of Tree 40%, Shrubs 10% Herbs 30% and 20% grasses and it was concluded that leaves having more capacity to hold dust were greatly affected by road dust following stem, flower and branches.

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