XVI International Botanical Congess

Biological monitoring offers an interesting complement or even an alternative to classical gauges, especially when it comes to large-scale surveys of airborne contaminants. Lichens stand second only to mosses for that purpose, even though most work so far has focused on anthropogenic pollution. There are few studies on natural contamination and none on the arguably major stressor as to materials, plants and soil/water resources û airborne salinity. This paper deals with topics of biological and spatio-temporal variability, within an integrated methodology for monitoring and modeling salt deposition at ground level. The present results refer to chloride in lichens of the Ramalina genus and are used in the geostatistical estimation of salinity maps for south-western Portugal.