Monitoreo de la calidad del aire del cantón Cuenca mediante el uso de bioindicadores (líquenes, Vicia faba y R. Sativus)

Abstract

Plants are living beings that capture carbon dioxide, but they can also be used as tools to determine the air quality of a place because they can suffer alterations due to external factors such as air pollution, that is why the main objective of this research work was to monitor air quality in the Cuenca canton through the use of plants as bioindicators. For this purpose the passive and active methodology was applied, in the active methodology two species Raphanus sativus and Vicia faba were used as bioindicators, 8 monitoring points were taken distributed around the entire canton, for the passive methodology the species known as Lichen for bioindicator, because this species is present in most of the trees of the canton, to obtain the results of the passive methodology, it was based on determining the Atmospheric Purity Index (IPA) in the 8 monitoring points. The ArcGIS software was used and the IDW (Inverse Distance Weighting) tool was used to extrapolate the concentration data obtained from the Cuenca Municipal Public Mobility, Transit and Transport Company (EMOV EP), the active methodology focused on observing the alterations morphological and ecotoxicological effects presented by the species of R. Sativus and V. Faba, which occurred in the course of the time that it lasted e l monitoring. In the passive methodology, IPA values between 9.8 and 22.8 were obtained, the latter being the highest IPA value related to good air quality. In the active methodology, the species that suffered the most alterations were R, Sativus, presenting spots on its leaves and low weights. Finally, the place that presented the highest environmental contamination was the Arenal point in both the active and passive methodology, while the place that showed the least contamination was the Camal in the active methodology and Balzay in the passive methodology.