An interdisciplinary approach to assess human health risk in an urban environment: A case study in temperate Argentina

Unplanned urbanization increases the exposure of people to environmental hazards. Within a landscape ecology framework, this study is a diagnosis of human health risk in San Martín, an urban district of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Risk was estimated by combining four hazard indexes (water and air pollution, and mosquito and rodent infestation) and a vulnerability index. Each index was obtained by integrating environmental and socio-demographic layers in a Geographic Information System. Spatial autocorrelation was assessed for each hazard, vulnerability and risk indexes using Moran's tests. Also, spatial associations between pairs of variables were addressed by means of Geographically Weighted Regressions. The robustness of hazard and vulnerability indexes was checked by a sensitivity analysis. In General San Martín district, 83.3% of the population is exposed to relatively high levels of at least one hazard; 7.4% is exposed to relatively high levels of all hazards (11.5% of the total area) and only 16.7% lives in areas of relatively low levels of all hazards (15.4% of the total area). Areas where hazard intensity was relatively high corresponded to those areas where the most vulnerable population lives, enhancing human health risk. The models for hazards and vulnerability were reasonably robust to changes in the weights of the variables considered. Our results highlight the spatially heterogeneous nature of human health risk in an urban landscape, and reveal the location of critical risk hotspots where reduction or mitigation actions should be focused.Fil: Morandeira, Natalia Soledad. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; ArgentinaFil: Castesana, Paula Soledad. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional; ArgentinaFil: Cardo, María Victoria. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; ArgentinaFil: Salomone, Vanesa Natalia. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; ArgentinaFil: Vadell, María Victoria. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; ArgentinaFil: Rubio, Alejandra. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; Argentin

Assessment of Environmental Hazards to Public Health in Temperate Urban Argentina

Human health risk in urban areas depends on multiple environmental features. We performed a year-round survey in a highly urbanized district located in temperate Argentina (General San Martín, Buenos Aires) to establish baseline information about environmental hazards associated with health risks. Sampling was stratified into low and high hazardous zones according to estimated indexes previously developed for the area for four hazards: drinking water and air pollution, and mosquito and rodent infestation. Water from wells showed lower concentrations of aluminum, manganese and iron, and higher values of arsenic than tap samples, with the latter showing records above the maximum permitted for arsenic, aluminum and chromium. Benzene concentration in air was higher in summer than in winter, and in areas close to dumps and landfills, gas stations, high traffic pathways and industries with respect to low hazard areas. Adult mosquito collections were more abundant in high hazardous areas, three species from the genus Culex dominated the captures and the proportion of individuals from each species was variable seasonally and spatially. Rodent activity was recorded inside and outside dwellings, and its observed values did not differ between low and high hazardous areas. In the comparison between field data and estimated hazard maps, high accuracy was obtained for air pollution maps, intermediate accuracy for water pollution and mosquito infestation, and poor accuracy for rodent infestation. How to improve field surveys and estimated maps are both discussed, highlighting the need for dynamic feedback between GIS-based models and environmental monitoring.Fil: Vadell, María Victoria. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación en Ingeniería Ambiental; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Salomone, Vanesa Natalia. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; ArgentinaFil: Castesana, Paula Soledad. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación en Ingeniería Ambiental; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Morandeira, Natalia Soledad. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación en Ingeniería Ambiental; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Rubio, Alejandra. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación en Ingeniería Ambiental; ArgentinaFil: Cardo, María Victoria. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; Argentin

Temporal and spatial variability of nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture in Argentina

Agricultural activities constitute the main N2O emission source in Argentina. Although GHG inventories have been developed at the national and provincial level, emissions have not been thus far estimated at a higher spatial resolution. We estimated the time series 2000–2012 of N2O emissions at national, provincial and district levels. National N2O emissions in 2012 amounted to 105.1 Gg (95% CI: 73.0–200.7), with manure deposited on pasture accounting for 59.8%, crop residues 24.0%, N-fertilizers use 14.3%, manure management 1.7% and agricultural waste burning 0.2%. Beef cattle excreta followed by soybean crop residues were the major sources of N2O. The time series of N2O emission estimated at district level allowed identifying the effect of the frequent displacement of crops and livestock indicative of the variability of the intensity and location of the emission sources. The observed annual variability of emissions and the identification of the main drivers indicate the convenience of using surrogate methods to estimate emissions when activity data cannot be acquired on annual basis. This type of inventory would be of interest for decision makers and stakeholders when discussing environmental policies and measures in light of the responsibility of agricultural activities occurring in the territory of their concern.Fil: Castesana, Paula Soledad. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; ArgentinaFil: Vazquez Amabile, Gabriel Gustavo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Agrarias y Forestales; ArgentinaFil: Dawidowski, Laura Elena. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Gomez, Dario Ruben. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Argentin

Evaluación de patrones y fuentes de metales traza antropogénicos en la atmósfera de Los Andes Centrales mediante la combinación de mediciones in situ con un modelo de dispersión atmosférico

Este trabajo presenta la evaluación de la composición de nieve fresca de Los Andes Centrales como indicador ambiental de la influencia de las actividades antrópicas y la calidad del aire en el área. En tal sentido, en los años 2014-2015-2016, se realizaron campañas estacionales de muestreo de nieve para la determinación de metales traza representativos antropogénicos (Cu, Pb y Zn) en dos puntos característicos del área de estudio. Los resultados mostraron valores elevados en comparación con estudios similares realizados en otros sitios montañosos nevados del mundo, lo que sugiere una gran relevancia del alto tráfico de vehículos en la zona; las actividades mineras y la cercanía de centros urbanos. Se realizó además una simulación de la dispersión atmosférica y deposición utilizando el modelo CALPUFF, particularmente apropiado para estimar concentraciones en la atmósfera en entornos complejos.Fil: Ruggeri, María Florencia. Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria.; Chile. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Castesana, Paula Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación en Ingeniería Ambiental; ArgentinaFil: Bolaño, Tomás. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional de Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Puliafito, Salvador Enrique. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional; ArgentinaFil: Cereceda Balic, Francisco. Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria.; ChileReunión 2019 de la Sociedad Chilena de la CriósferaLa SerenaChileCentro de Estudios Avanzados en Zonas Árida

A machine learning approach to address air quality changes during the COVID-19 lockdown in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Having a prediction model for air quality at a low computational cost can be useful for research, forecasting, regulatory, and monitoring applications. This is of particular importance for Latin America, where rapid urbanization has imposed increasing stress on the air quality of almost all cities. In recent years, machine learning techniques have been increasingly accepted as a useful tool for air quality forecasting. Out of these, random forest has proven to be an approach that is both well-performing and computationally efficient while still providing key components reflecting the nonlinear relationships among emissions, chemical reactions, and meteorological effects. In this work, we employed the random forest methodology to build and test a forecasting model for the city of Buenos Aires. We used this model to study the deep decline in most pollutants during the lockdown imposed by the COVID-19 (COronaVIrus Disease 2019) pandemic by analyzing the effects of the change in emissions, while taking into account the changes in the meteorology, using two different approaches. First, we built random forest models trained with the data from before the beginning of the lockdown periods. We used the data to make predictions of the business-as-usual scenario during the lockdown periods and estimated the changes in concentrations by comparing the model results with the observations. This allowed us to assess the combined effects of the particular weather conditions and the reduction in emissions during the period when restrictions were in place. Second, we used random forest with meteorological normalization to compare the observational data from the lockdown periods with the data from the same dates in 2019, thus decoupling the effects of the meteorology from short-term emission changes. This allowed us to analyze the general effect that restrictions similar to those imposed during the pandemic could have on pollutant concentrations, and this information could be useful to design mitigation strategies. The results during testing showed that the model captured the observed hourly variations and the diurnal cycles of these pollutants with a normalized mean bias of less than 6 % and Pearson correlation coefficients of the diurnal variations between 0.64 and 0.91 for all the pollutants considered. Based on the random forest results, we estimated that the lockdown implied relative changes in concentration of up to −45 % for CO, −75 % for NO, −46 % for NO2, −12 % for SO2, and −33 % for PM10 during the strictest mobility restrictions. O3 had a positive relative change in concentration (up to an 80 %) that is consistent with the response in a volatile-organic-compound-limited chemical regime to the decline in NOx emissions. The relative changes estimated using the meteorological normalization technique show mostly smaller changes than those obtained by the random forest predictive model. The relative changes were up to −26 % for CO, up to −47 % for NO, −36 % for NO2, −20 % for PM10, and up to 27 % for O3. SO2 is the only species that had a larger relative change when the meteorology was normalized (up to 20 %). This points out the need for accounting not only for differences in emissions but also in meteorological variables in order to evaluate the lockdown effects on air quality. The findings of this study may be valuable for formulating emission control strategies that do not disregard their implication on secondary pollutants. We believe that the model itself can also be a valuable contribution to a forecasting system in the city and that the general methodology could also be easily applied to other Latin American cities as well. We also provide the first O3 and SO2 observational dataset in more that a decade for a residential area in Buenos Aires, and it is openly available at https://doi.org/10.17632/h9y4hb8sf8.1 (Diaz Resquin et al., 2021).Fil: Diaz Resquin, Melisa. Centro de Ciencia del Clima y la Resiliencia; Chile. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería; ArgentinaFil: Lichtig, Pablo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Alessandrello, Diego. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: De Oto, Marcelo. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Gómez, Darío. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería; ArgentinaFil: Rossler, Cristina Elena. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; ArgentinaFil: Castesana, Paula Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Argentina. YPF - Tecnología; ArgentinaFil: Dawidowski, Laura Elena. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; Argentin

Identifying patterns and sources of anthropogenic trace metals in the Argentine Central Andes by using snow samples and an atmospheric dispersion model

This study presents the first local measurements of metals in snow from the Argentine Central Andes. Cu, Pb and Zn were selected as specific tracers of anthropogenic local emission sources in the study area. Snow samples were collected during winter (2014, 2015 and 2016) at two sites with different characteristics: Punta de Vacas and Vallecitos. The samples were analyzed by ICP-MS, and the average concentrations found were 1.4 μg L-1 (Cu), 2.2 μg L-1 (Pb) and 14.2 μg L-1 (Zn) in the snow samples from Vallecitos, and 5.3 μg L-1 (Cu), 2.6 μg L-1 (Pb) and 24.0 μg L-1 (Zn) in the snow samples from Punta de Vacas. These data and the snowfall amount in each sampling site were statistically analyzed. Results suggested that the levels of metals in the snow are influenced not only by the atmospheric concentrations, but also by the amount of precipitated snow. Additionally, an atmospheric dispersion model, CALPUFF, was applied in the study area to determine the origin of the studied metals and to understand the spatial distribution pattern of the concentrations found. Results showed that the metal atmospheric loads in the study area originated from local sources, especially vehicular traffic and mining. This work represents an important contribution to the knowledge and preservation of the local Andean cryosphere, and it could be used as an input to develop protection policies in the area through the combination of different and complementary tools for the evaluation of air quality.Fil: Ruggeri, María Florencia. Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria.; Chile. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales; ArgentinaFil: Castesana, Paula Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Martín; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Área de Seguridad Nuclear y Ambiente. Gerencia de Química (CAC); ArgentinaFil: Bolaño Ortiz, Tomas Rafael. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional de Mendoza; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Puliafito, Salvador Enrique. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional de Mendoza; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Pascual Flores, Romina María. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional de Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Altamirano, Jorgelina Cecilia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Provincia de Mendoza. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales. Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales; ArgentinaFil: Allende, David Gabriel. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional de Mendoza; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; Argentin

PAPILA dataset: A regional emission inventory of reactive gases for South America based on the combination of local and global information

The multidisciplinary project Prediction of Air Pollution in Latin America and the Caribbean (PAPILA) is dedicated to the development and implementation of an air quality analysis and forecasting system to assess pollution impacts on human health and economy. In this context, a comprehensive emission inventory for South America was developed on the basis of the existing data on the global dataset CAMS-GLOB-ANT v4.1 (developed by joining CEDS trends and EDGAR v4.3.2 historical data), enriching it with data derived from locally available emission inventories for Argentina, Chile, and Colombia. This work presents the results of the first joint effort of South American researchers and European colleagues to generate regional maps of emissions, together with a methodological approach to continue incorporating information into future versions of the dataset. This version of the PAPILA dataset includes CO, NOx, NMVOCs, NH3, and SO2 annual emissions from anthropogenic sources for the period 2014-2016, with a spatial resolution of 0.1gg×g0.1gover a domain that covers 32-120ggW and 34ggN-58ggS. The PAPILA dataset is presented as netCDF4 files and is available in an open-Access data repository under a CC-BY 4 license: 10.17632/btf2mz4fhf.3 . A comparative assessment of PAPILA-CAMS datasets was carried out for (i) the South American region, (ii) the countries with local data (Argentina, Colombia, and Chile), and (iii) downscaled emission maps for urban domains with different environmental and anthropogenic factors. Relevant differences were found at both country and urban levels for all the compounds analyzed. Among them, we found that when comparing PAPILA total emissions versus CAMS datasets at the national level, higher levels of NOx and considerably lower levels of the other species were obtained for Argentina, higher levels of SO2 and lower levels of CO and NOx for Colombia, and considerably higher levels of CO, NMVOCs, and SO2 for Chile. These discrepancies are mainly related to the representativeness of local practices in the local emission estimates, to the improvements made in the spatial distribution of the locally estimated emissions, or to both. Both datasets were evaluated against surface concentrations of CO and NOx by using them as input data to the WRF-Chem model for one of the analyzed domains, the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, for summer and winter of 2015. PAPILA-based modeling results had a smaller bias for CO and NOx concentrations in winter while CAMS-based results for the same period tended to deliver an underestimation of these concentrations. Both inventories exhibited similar performances for CO in summer, while the PAPILA simulation outperformed CAMS for NOx concentrations. These results highlight the importance of refining global inventories with local data to obtain accurate results with high-resolution air quality models.Fil: Castesana, Paula Soledad. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Diaz Resquin, Melisa. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Huneeus, Nicolás. Universidad de Chile; ChileFil: Puliafito, Salvador Enrique. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional de Mendoza; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Darras, Sabine. Instituto Polytechnique de Toulouse; FranciaFil: Gómez, Darío. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Granier, Claire. University of Colorado; Estados UnidosFil: Osses Alvarado, Mauricio. Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María; ChileFil: Rojas, Néstor. Universidad Nacional de Colombia; ColombiaFil: Dawidowski, Laura Elena. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; Argentin

High resolution inventory of GHG emissions of the road transport sector in Argentina

Air quality models require the use of extensive background information, such as land use and topography maps, meteorological data and emission inventories of pollutant sources. This challenge increases when considering the vehicular sources. The available international databases have uneven resolution for all countries including some areas with low spatial resolution associated with large districts (several hundred km). A simple procedure is proposed in order to develop an inventory of emissions with high resolution (9km) for the transport sector based on a geographic information system using readily available information applied to Argentina. The basic variable used is the vehicle activity (vehicle - km transported) estimated from fuel consumption and fuel efficiency. This information is distributed to a spatial grid according to a road hierarchy and segment length assigned to each street within the cell. Information on fuel is obtained from district consumption, but weighted using the DMSP-OLS satellite "Earth at night" image. The uncertainty of vehicle estimation and emission calculations was tested using sensitivity Montecarlo analysis. The resulting inventory is calibrated using annual average daily traffic counts in around 850 measuring points all over the country leading to an uncertainty of 20%. Uncertainties in the emissions calculation at pixel level can be estimated to be less than 12%. Comparison with international databases showed a better spatial distribution of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in the transport sector, but similar total national values.Fil: Puliafito, Salvador Enrique. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Buenos Aires; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional de Mendoza; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Allende, David Gabriel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional de Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Pinto, Sebastián. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Buenos Aires; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Castesana, Paula Soledad. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Buenos Aires; Argentin

Mitigation of road transport carbon emissions in Argentina

This study describes a model to calculate energy consumption and CO2 emissions into the atmosphere by the road transport sector in Argentina from 1960 to 2050. The model analyses different mitigation scenarios to determine effective options to produce a sensitive decrease in carbon emissions. The results of this study show that by reducing the use of private vehicles while increasing the use of public transport, combined with a high rate of conversion of gasoline vehicles into hybrid electric vehicles, CO2 emissions could be reduced up to 9% (or 7.7 Tg). However, without further technological improvements and higher modal transfer to low carbon/less energy-intensive modes, it will be difficult to obtain emission stabilisation of transport emissions under 80 Tg by 2050, which represent approximately twice the current values.Fil: Puliafito, Salvador Enrique. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional de Mendoza; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Castro, Fernando. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional de Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Allende, David Gabriel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional de Mendoza; ArgentinaFil: Castesana, Paula Soledad. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mendoza; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Buenos Aires; Argentin

Ammonia emissions from the agriculture sector in Argentina; 2000–2012

Agriculture is one of the key economic sectors in Argentina and, in the last decades, the increase in prices and competitiveness of some grains has imposed important changes. In this process, crop cultivation occupied significant extensions of land areas previously dedicated to livestock farming, which in turn have experienced intensification in terms of production through an increasing share of feedlot systems. The agriculture sector is the main NH3 emitter in Argentina, however no inventory developed locally has been thus far available. We estimated the time series 2000–2012 of NH3 emissions, both at national and spatially disaggregated levels. National NH3 emissions in 2012 amounted to 0.31 ± 0.08 Tg, with the use of mineral fertilizers accounting for 43.0%, manure in pasture 32.5%, manure management 23.0% and agricultural waste burning 1.5%. Urea use was the major source of NH3 emissions and its application on wheat and corn crops dominated the trend. Emissions from open biomass burning were estimated but not included in the national totals because of the difficulties in differentiating between agricultural (i.e., prescribed burning of savannas) and non-agricultural emission sources. Compared to this work, NH3 emissions reported by EDGAR were 83% higher than our estimates. The time series of spatially distributed NH3 emission estimates clearly showed the effect of the expansion of cropland, the displacement of planted areas of N-fertilizes crops by competing soybean cultivation and the relocation and intensification of beef cattle production. This new inventory constitutes a tool for policies concerning the impact of agricultural activities on air quality and contributes with more accurate and updated information useful for atmospheric chemical transport modeling. The accuracy and applicability of the inventory may be improved by local studies aimed at refining the spatial disaggregation by focusing in specific areas of fertilizer application, reflecting seasonal and monthly patterns in agricultural practices and climate conditions and addressing likely changes in diets, productivity and excretion rates over time.Instituto de Clima y AguaFil: Castesana, Paula Soledad. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; Argentina. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. Facultad Regional Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Dawidowski, Laura Elena. Universidad Nacional de San Martín. Instituto de Investigación e Ingeniería Ambiental; Argentina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Finster, Laura. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instituto de Clima y Agua; ArgentinaFil: Gómez, Darío R. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica; ArgentinaFil: Taboada, Miguel Angel. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Instuto de Suelos; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin