The Recovery of Damaged Pine Forests in an Area Formerly Polluted by Nitrogen

An area in Lithuania containing coniferous stands of Scots pine and Norway spruce that were dead or damaged due to nitrogen pollution by a nitrogen fertilizer plant (JV Achema) was found to have expanded between 1974 and 1989 to a distance of 20 to 25 km northeast of the plant in the direction of prevailing winds. Over the last 10 years, when nitrogen pollution by the plant had decreased, a clear process of recovery of the damaged ecosystems could be observed. The following features of this process as it occurred in damaged Scots pine stands are discussed: (1) refoliation (or decreased defoliation) of damaged trees, where a clear positive trend could be observed; (2) changes in the species composition and in the covering by ground vegetation, where small changes and indication of less-nitrophilous species coverage could be detected; and (3) chemical and acidity changes in Luvisols and Arenosols, where a significant decrease could be seen especially concerning nitrate concentrations.

• Publication year

  2001

• Venue

  TheScientificWorldJournal

• Publication date

  2001-12-08

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1100/tsw.2001.451PMID 12805748PMCID 6084095
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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