Stone pollution source

Air pollution sources in the United States and Canada currently emit more than 25 million tons of sulfur dioxide each year. SO2 and wet acidic deposition are believed to cause damage to aquatic life, crops, forests, and materials. The effects on materials include damages to common construction materials including galvanized steel (zinc), paint, copper, building stones and mortar, as well as damages to cultural or historic objects and buildings. 

Northern Ireland thus provides a particular opportunity to study natural patterns and causes of building stone decay and also the impact of local pollution sources. To do this we examine in this paper first, the nature of rural and urban atmospheric pollution in Northern Ireland second, decay of sandstone buildings in Belfast together with the nature of associated particulate pollution and finally, decay associated with atmospheric pollution is compared to that caused by other agencies in both rural and urban environments. 

Because it lies to the northwest of mainland Europe, Northern Ireland is generally considered to experience low levels of transnational atmospheric pollution. This therefore provides the opportunity to examine both natural patterns and causes of building stone decay and also the impact of local pollution sources. The effects of the latter are further enhanced by incomplete enactment of clean-air legislation and only sporadic compliance in cities such as Belfast. 

Deterioration of ancient stonework appears to have accelerated very markedly in many places in the present century Winkler [109], whose treatise on the durability of stone is the major source for the material in this section, shows photographs of early eighteenth century sandstone statues in places close to the Rhine—Ruhr industrial region. After two hundred years, at the beginning of the present century, these statues had clearly delineated features of faces, hands, etc. Sixty years later, they appeared rough outlines, faceless and handless. If this deterioration indeed owes nothing to the military activities of two world wars, it is a remarkable illustration of the effects of industrial pollution of the atmosphere. 

Atmospheric levels of pollutant species have shown a marked increase over the last century due to greater industrialisation and the use of fossil fuels. It has been shown that pollutants tend to return to the ground at or near to their source, according to prevailing weather conditions (Fenn et.al. 1963). Therefore in urban and industrial areas deposition of these corrosive species can result in marked deterioration of the surfaces of stone buildings. Excellent reviews covering atmospheric pollutants and their behaviour have been published (Winkler 1973) (Amoroso and Fassina 1983). 

The remaining chapters in the first section of the book cover the measurement and investigation of the fate and transport of specific chemicals in the soil, water and atmosphere and exchange among these media. Chapter 3 by West and Wilson reviews subsurface natural attenuation of contaminants. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 by Stone et ai, Soderstrom et ai, and Butler and Hayes, respectively, all relate to the movement and fate of organic chemicals in soils and sediments, while Chaper 9 by Pedersen and Suffet and Chapter 10 by Salmun and Farhan focus on runoff from the terrestrial environment to nearby waters. These last two chapters illustrate the need to understand the complexities of non-point source pollutant inputs. Recent books have also focused on similar topics for persistent and bioaccumulative toxics (PBTs) (41,42). 

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