Scientists' Contributions

Mapping air quality with lichens in urban areas in Bulgaria

A. Kovatchev¹ and D. Ivanov²

    Instrumental monitoring of air pollution in Bulgaria is a traditional approach. But establishing and maintaining a comprehensive field monitoring network is a high costing task. The use of lichens allows to obtain comprehensive and cheap data about temporal and spatial changes in air pollution patterns. Lichen mapping is especially useful in urban areas. Different approaches to mapping the air quality with epiphytic lichens in urban territories in Bulgaria are discussed. Index of Atmospheric Purity (IAP) as a sum of frequencies was used in the town of Sofia. It is found to be the most appropriate approach for the country and its advantages are pointed out. A zone map of the investigated territory of Sofia using the IAP values and Criging as an interpolation algorithm is plotted.