A multi-pollutant methodology to locate a single air quality monitoring station in small and medium-size urban areas

Air quality management is underpinned by continuous measurements of concentrations of target air pollutants in monitoring stations. Although many approaches for optimizing the number and location of air quality monitoring stations are described in the literature, these are usually focused on dense networks. However, there are small and medium-size urban areas that only require one monitoring station but also suffer from severe air pollution. Given that target pollutants are usually measured at the same sampling points; it is necessary to develop a methodology to determine the optimal location of the single station. In this paper, such a methodology is proposed based on maximizing an objective function, that balances between different pollutants measured in the network. The methodology is applied to a set of data available for the city of Cartagena, in southeast Spain. A sensitivity analysis reveals that 2 small areas of the studied city account for 80% of the optimal potential locations, which makes them ideal candidates for setting up the monitoring station. The methodology is easy to implement, robust and supports the decision-making process regarding the siting of fixed sampling sites.The sampling campaigns used to test the methodology were funded by the Consejería de Agricultura y Agua of the Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia

Incidencia de benceno, tolueno y xilenos en la calidad del aire en la ciudad de Murcia : Proyecto LIFE-MACBETH / Antonia Baeza Caracena ; directores Agustín Miñana Aznar, Enrique González Ferradas.

Tesis-Universidad de Murcia.Consulte la tesis en: BCA. GENERAL. DEPOSITO. T.M-2167(II).Consulte la tesis en: BCA. GENERAL. DEPOSITO. T.M-2167(I)

Flow sensors validation

The Word document and Excel data were used to validate two Flow 2 sensors prior to experiments for the paper:"New methodology to evaluate and optimize indoor ventilation based on rapid response sensors"by María del Mar Durán del Amor, Antonia Baeza Caracena, Francisco Esquembre, and Mercedes Llorens Pascual del Riquelme(Under consideration)</p

BTEX proportions as an indicator of benzene hotspots and dispersion tends in cities where sea and land breezes dominate

There are certain spatial configurations in cities that generate areas with reduced ventilation where, consequently, air pollution can reach hazardous levels. Although urban forms have already been flagged as a factor affecting air pollution, its role in the accumulation of volatile organic compounds has not been extensively evaluated with field measurements. In order to investigate the effect of urban morphology on air pollution levels, we measured the concentration of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) in 44 different city sites, using Radiello® diffusive passive samplers during a 1-week campaign. This work presents a method that maps a city in zones with different levels of atmospheric dispersion by analyzing the proportions of BTEX in the ambient air. The method applied to a coastal city (characterized by uniform wind patterns) revealed the existence of two clearly differentiated zones. In one of them, the mean benzene concentration was 3.26 times higher than in the other. However, the mean concentrations of the rest of BTEX were barely the same in both areas. These findings suggest that slow degradation pollutants (i.e., benzene) accumulate in poor ventilated areas, whereas faster degradation pollutants do not show accumulation. The conclusions of this study can be particularly useful in designing personal exposure assessments, optimizing the urban morphology, and improving the location of air quality monitoring stationsThis work was supported by the Environmental Department of the Autonomous Community of MurciaPeer reviewe

BTEX proportions as an indicator of benzene hotspots and dispersion tends in cities where sea and land breezes dominate

©2023. The authors. This document is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This document is the published version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.1007/s11869-023-01306-3There are certain spatial configurations in cities that generate areas with reduced ventilation where, consequently, air pollution can reach hazardous levels. Although urban forms have already been flagged as a factor affecting air pollution, its role in the accumulation of volatile organic compounds has not been extensively evaluated with field measurements. In order to investigate the effect of urban morphology on air pollution levels, we measured the concentration of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) in 44 different city sites, using Radiello® diffusive passive samplers during a 1-week campaign. This work presents a method that maps a city in zones with different levels of atmospheric dispersion by analyzing the proportions of BTEX in the ambient air. The method applied to a coastal city (characterized by uniform wind patterns) revealed the existence of two clearly differentiated zones. In one of them, the mean benzene concentration was 3.26 times higher than in the other. However, the mean concentrations of the rest of BTEX were barely the same in both areas. These findings suggest that slow degradation pollutants (i.e., benzene) accumulate in poor ventilated areas, whereas faster degradation pollutants do not show accumulation. The conclusions of this study can be particularly useful in designing personal exposure assessments, optimizing the urban morphology, and improving the location of air quality monitoring stations

Assessing the impact of petrol stations on their immediate surroundings

This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in [Journal of Environmental Management]. To access the final edited and published work see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20810207

New Methodology to Evaluate and Optimize Indoor Ventilation Based on Rapid Response Sensors

The recent pandemic increased attention to the need for appropriated ventilation and good air quality as efficient measures to achieve safe and healthy indoor air. This work provides a novel methodology for continuously evaluating ventilation in public areas using modern rapid response sensors (RRS). This methodology innovatively assesses the ventilation of a space by combining a quantitative estimation of the real air exchange in the space—obtained from CO2 experimental RRS measurements and the characteristics of and activity in the space—and indoor and outdoor RRS measurements of other pollutants, with healthy recommendations from different organisations. The methodology allows space managers to easily evaluate, in a continuous form, the appropriateness of their ventilation strategy, thanks to modern RRS measurements and direct calculations (implemented here in a web app), even in situations of full activity. The methodology improves on the existing standards, which imply the release of tracer gases and expert intervention, and could also be used to set a control system that measures continuously and adapts the ventilation to changes in indoor occupancy and activity, guaranteeing safe and healthy air in an energy-efficient way. Sample public concurrence spaces with different conditions are used to illustrate the methodology

Population Exposure to Benzene: One Day Cross Sections in Six European Cities

This paper describes the experimental methodology and basic results of the PEOPLE project (Population Exposure to Air Pollutants in Europe). Measurement campaigns were completed in six cities, namely: Brussels and Lisbon (22 October 2002), Bucharest and Ljubljana (27 May 2003), Madrid (3 December 2003) and Dublin (28 April 2004). In general human exposure to benzene was higher than concentrations reported at urban background monitoring sites. Traffic was the dominant source of benzene in all six cities that were studied. The highest exposure levels from the commuting groups were car users. The control group, with no influence from commuting or smoking, reported concentrations closer to the background level of the city. The smoking group had the highest level of exposure. The level of exposure of children was similar to that of the commuting groups. Some individuals and locations reported extremely high concentrations, often due to unusual proximity to known emission sources. Indoor locations that were influenced by smoking sources or with free access to busy streets reported relatively high concentrations. The highest indoor concentrations were measured in bars and inside motor vehicles. When considering the six cities together, a linear relationship was evident between ambient levels and human exposure. Daily median values of human exposure for non-smoking commuters were 1.5 times the level of urban background.JRC.H.4-Transport and air qualit