Air quality impacts on agriculture and ecosystems

PI: Professor Nadine Unger

Funders: Newton Fund

A pioneering new study by Professor Nadine Unger of the University of Exeter and Professor Xu Yue of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Beijing, has revealed that pollutants released by the devastating wild fires can affect crop and vegetation growth hundreds of kilometres from the fire impact zone.

The study examined how ozone and aerosols – two by-product pollutants of wildfires – influences healthy plant growth in areas that are seemingly unaffected by the destructive natural disasters.