Atmospheric Pollutant Flow and Precipitation: Modeling Effects on the Vegetation Ecosystem

Abstract

Because of their fixed life and wide distribution, plants are the first victims of air pollution. The atmosphere is considered polluted when the increase of the rate of certain components causes harmful effects on the different constituents of the ecosystems. The study of the flow of air near a polluting source (cement plant in our case), allows to predict its impact on the surrounding plant ecosystem. Different factors are to be considered. The chemical composition of the air, the climatic conditions, and the impacted plant species are complex parameters to be analyzed using conventional mathematical methods. In this study, we propose a system based on artificial neural networks. Since artificial neural networks have the capacity to treat different complex parameters, their application in this domain is adequate. The proposed system makes it possible to match the input and output spaces. The variables that constitute the input space are the chemical composition, the concentration of the latter in the rainwater, their duration of deposition on the leaves and stems, the climatic conditions characterizing the environment, as well as the species of plant studied. The output variable expresses the rate of degradation of this species under the effect of pollution. Learning the system makes it possible to establish the transfer function and thus predict the impact of pollutants on the vegetation.