Air quality has a significant impact on the comfort of the cities and
the health of humans, other organisms, and the whole environment. The
implementation of air quality legislation requires continuous
measurements. The direct air pollution measurements using air
quality monitoring stations and the air pollution dispersion
models suffer from poor spatial representativeness.
Consequently, local scale variation in pollution levels and pollution
sources can easily remain undetected. In this thesis, the air pollution
research is conducted using magnetic biomonitoring. The focus is on
the omnipresent iron-bearing mineral particles and heavy metals
bound to them. Magnetic biomonitoring combines the methods of
traditional biomonitoring and enviromagnetic research. It is
useful for the identification of pollution or emission sources
and routes, for determining the magnetic particle matter (PM) sizes,
and for constructing spatially representative pollution maps.



This thesis investigates the spatio-temporal properties of
anthropogenic magnetic particle matter. The samples were collected
from industrial and urban environments in southwest (SW)
Finland using the active moss bag technique as the main
sampling method. The thesis evaluates the applicability of
magnetic (bio)monitoring for enhancing the representativeness of
air quality assessments, and establishes the basis for its
application, particularly in mid-latitudes with seasonal variation.
The study indicates that active biomonitoring is a powerful tool for
enhancing the spatial accuracy of air quality assessments and for
evaluating the spatial representativeness of air quality monitoring
stations. Both industrial and urban environments benefit from
magnetic screening. The joint use of spatially representative
sampling networks as well as magnetic, micro-morphological, and
chemical research methods provide quantitative air pollution data, and
also guide, for example, the identification of emission sources
and pollution impact areas. Magnetic air pollution monitoring with
the active moss bag technique is shown to be more applicable than the
examined epiphytic lichen or snow samples. The four-seasoned year, which
is typical for mid-latitudes, sets limitations on the application of
biomonitoring for air quality assessments. Autumn and winter are
suggested as the most representative seasons for obtaining a general
assessment of the air quality using the moss bag technique.