On 7 September, Advisor to the FLNP Directorate at JINR Marina Frontasyeva participated in the MDPI Webinar dedicated to the International Day of Clean Air 2023. The researcher delivered a report “Atmospheric Deposition of Trace Elements and Radionuclides in Europe, Asia and the Pacific Region Based on Moss Analysis” that covered the research carried out at FLNP.

MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute) is a publisher of open access scientific journals based in Basel (Switzerland) that has supported academic communities since 1996. MDPI is among the largest publishers in the world in terms of the volume of published journal articles and is the largest publisher of open access articles.

“The webinar aims to encourage connections and collaboration between air pollution researchers, share and discuss their research findings,” Marina Frontasyeva highlighted. “Only three out of a hundred applications were selected for this meeting, and it is a great honour that I was among them.” This is a good example of the fact that the scientific world supports us, and science is always above politics.”

Together with Marina Frontasyeva, Peter Brimblecombe from the National Sun Yat-Sen University, Taiwan, and Ilias Kavouras from the City University of New York, the USA, current Editor-in-Chief of the ATMOSHERE journal, delivered their reports as well. The scientists discussed issues on air pollution and planned measures to prevent its further development.

A group of FLNP JINR scientists has been participated in the UN Programme on Effects of Air Pollution on Natural Vegetation and Crops (ICP Vegetation) since 1995. By a method of neutron activation analysis, scientists determine the content of chemical elements using mosses. Mosses are unique plants for studying the harmful effects of anthropogenic impact on the environment. They effectively concentrate pollutants from the air and precipitation, they do not have a root system, and, therefore, the contribution of other sources of heavy metals, besides atmospheric precipitation, and other pollutants is insignificant. Some types of mosses (Hylocomium splendens, Pleurozium schreberi, Hypnum copressiforme) are common in a wide range of temperate climatic zones and are considered to be biomonitors of trace elements and radionuclides. The collection of samples is not difficult, the analysis of mosses is much easier than the analysis of, for example, precipitation or air filters. FLNP scientists studied many samples of moss biomonitors collected on the territories of several Member States of the Joint Institute and not only. They conducted moss biomonitoring in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Central Russia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Mongolia, Northern Macedonia, the North Caucasus, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Vietnam. Afterwards, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe received the obtained results. The Commision oversees the UN Air Programme in Europe, which Marina Frontasyeva coordinated from 2014 to 2023. Her report aimed to popularise biomonitoring and promote the programme on air pollution study in Europe to Asia and the Pacific coast countries.