Small attention has been still addressed to the study of ozone effects on seminatural vegetation. Following this direction we selected an ozone heavily exposed area in Northern Italy, where the development of visible injuries on leaves of common pasture herbs were observed. The selected area, an alpine pasture located at Moggio belongs to the Level II permanent monitoring network of the ICP-Forest program. The ozone exposure mapping exercise made on the whole regional domain estimated for this area an AOT40f of 32000 ppb.h as 1999 and 2000 years average

Forest ecosystems water balance research is very complicated because of forest influence upon individual components of the water balance. Global climate changes represent a real threat for forest ecosystems. In hydric area these changes concern especially thermal balance and resulting increased evapotranspiration, time and spatial distribution of precipitation

Reductions in the apparent soil-water partition coefficients (K(d)* ) for 28 polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) caused by the surfactant sodium dodecylsulphate (SDS) in the aqueous phase were studied. Above the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of the surfactant, K(d)* was reduced by 2-3 orders of magnitude, but even far below CMC at environmentally relevant surfacant concentrations significant reductions in Kd3 were observed. The plot of the soil-water partition coefficient (K(d)) divided by K(d)* versus the concentration of SDS allowed for the calculation of monomer (K(mn)(oc)) and micellar (K(mc)(oc)) surfactant-water parrition coefficients normalized to organic carbon for each PCB congener. K(mn)(oc) values were comparable with published values for the partition of PCBs between natural dissolved organic matter and lake water. K(mc)(oc) values were up to 30 times higher than K(mn)(oc) values and comparable with published octanol-water distribution coefficients. The findings of the present study underline the potential of surfactants at concentrations below their CMC to mobilize otherwise strongly bound hydrophobic compounds in soil-water systems.