Characterization and Local Emission Sources for Ammonia in an Urban Environment

Ammonia levels were evaluated in the urban environment of Madrid City, Spain. A total of 110 samplers were distributed throughout the city. Vehicle traffic density, garbage containers and sewers were identified as local emission sources of ammonia. The average ammonia concentrations were 4.66 ± 2.14 µg/m3 (0.39-11.23 µg/m3 range) in the winter and 5.30 ± 1.81 µg/m3 (2.33-11.08 µg/m3 range) in the summer. Spatial and seasonal variations of ammonia levels were evaluated. Hotspots were located in the south and center of Madrid City in both winter and summer seasons, with lower ammonia concentrations located in the north (winter) and in the west and east (summer). The number of representative points that were needed to establish a reliable air quality monitoring network for ammonia was determined using a combined clustering and kriging approach. The results indicated that 40 samplers were sufficient to provide a reliable estimate for Madrid City.The authors gratefully acknowledge the members of the Department of Atmospheric Pollution from the National Center for Environmental Health for their assistance in sample collection. This work was supported by the Municipality of Madrid

Short-Term Effects of Ozone on Mortality: Comparative Analysis of Urban and Suburban Zones in Madrid (Spain)

A large number of papers published in the last decades are related to the effect of ozone exposure on mortality worldwide. Several studies have been performed to investigate the effect of ozone on mortality in Madrid (Spain), but the findings of these local reports were focused only on the Madrid city. The association of daily concentrations of ozone with daily mortality was investigated using autoregressive Poisson regression models. This study explores the effects of ozone on all causes except accidents, cardiovascular and respiratory short-term mortality in two areas of the Madrid region: an urban area constituted by the Madrid municipality and an industrial sub-urban area surrounding the city. Using three years of daily data (2003-2005), it was analyzed the all-ages populations and the over-64 age groups. The average ozone concentrations over the study period were 54.07 ± 27.17 μg/m3 in the Madrid municipality and 70.09 ± 32.96 μg/m3 in the sub-urban municipalities surrounding the city. Our results in the all-ages group indicated that 0.69% of all causes except accidents, 1.15% of cardiovascular and 1.56% of respiratory daily deaths, respectively, could be attributed to exposure to ozone in the Madrid city, whereas 11.69% of daily respiratory deaths were attributable to ozone exposure in the Madrid sub-urban surroundings. Our results show a clear association between mortality and ozone exposure. The spatial heterogeneity of ozone effects on short-term mortality throughout the Madrid region may have implications for local environmental policies and also for social and health services planning.This research was funded by the European Commission FP7-ENV project “Health Risk from Environmental Pollution Levels in Urban Systems (HEREPLUS)”, contract 212854. We wish give our thanks to the following contributors: the Madrid Community Institute of Statistics for supplying the mortality data; the Madrid Municipality authority and the Madrid Community government for providing the environmental data; the Palynology Network of the Madrid Regional Health Authority for supplying the pollen data and, the National Centre of Epidemiology for providing the influenza data. In addition, we also wish to give our special thanks to Julio Díaz and Cristina Linares for their support in the statistical analysis

Outdoor, indoor and personal distribution of BTEX in pregnant women from two areas in Spain – Preliminary results from the INMA project

AbstractVolatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are habitually found in both outdoor and indoor environments, may represent a significant health risk. In this context, pregnancy is a critical period since foetuses are more vulnerable than adults to exposure to toxic compounds. The objective of this study is to present the preliminary results of a series of measurements of outdoor (O), indoor (I) and personal exposure (P) to benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, o-xylene and m,p-xylene (BTEX) in 107 pregnant women from two areas in Spain, namely Valencia and Sabadell. BTEX samplers were installed for 48 hours both inside and outside of the women’s homes, along with personal samplers. In addition, the test subjects filled out a questionnaire about the activities they carried out during the sampling period.BTEX levels were higher in Valencia than in Sabadell (median O, I and P benzene levels in Valencia were 1.40, 2.40 and 3.05μg/m3, respectively, while in Sabadell they were 0.01, 0.32 and 1.02μg/m3). In both locations, an O<I<P pattern was observed. In the multivariate analysis an association was found between personal levels of total BTEX and indoor and outdoor levels, environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), and use of deodorant, perfume or hairspray in Valencia whereas in Sabadell an association between personal levels of total BTEX and indoor levels, age and working status was observed.We found that, in comparison with other studies, our sample population’s exposure to these compounds was not excessively high. This is one of the few studies to determine the personal BTEX exposure levels of pregnant women, who comprise a vulnerable population. Still, due to the small sample size of the present study, further studies are needed to be carried out in this field

Metodología para la Toma de Muestra de Microorganismos Altamente Patógenos en las Matrices Ambientales Aire, Agua y Suelo/Sedimento

Tras su aparición en el siglo XX, la posibilidad de que se lleven a cabo ataques biote-rroristas se ha convertido en una de las mayores amenazas sobre la población a nivel mun-dial. Dado que la calidad de vida de la ciudadanía y la salud pública están directamente ligadas, y que los ataques bioterroristas pueden producir efectos adversos, llegando inclu-so a producir muerte, se concluye que la ejecución de este tipo de ataques constituye una agresión directa sobre la salud pública. Esta razón explica la necesidad de fomentar planes de actuación frente a este tipo de situaciones de emergencia. A tal efecto y siguiendo las directrices de la OMS, instando a los países a prepararse frente a este tipo de ataques, mu-chos países movilizaron recursos con objeto de desarrollar planes de actuación enfocados a la prevención y/o al tratamiento de un supuesto ataque bioterrorista (Posada 2001). Los sistemas de vigilancia, definidos como herramientas fundamentales en el ámbito de la sa-lud pública de un país, estarían englobados en los planes de actuación (Serna et al., 2007).Un elemento crítico en la diseminación intencionada de agentes biológicos altamente patógenos responde a los medios de vehicular el agente biológico. La vía inhalatoria, oral, percutánea y dérmica engloban el conjunto de posibles vías de exposición o de entrada del agente en el cuerpo humano (Domínguez 2002).En el marco planteado, resulta fácil entender la necesidad de disponer de sistemas de detección precisos y fáciles de implementar para minimizar el daño y prevenir la disper-sión adicional de estos agentes, como consecuencia de la dificultad de predecir y prevenir agresiones bioterroristas (Thavaselvam 2010), que a su vez garanticen una respuesta eficaz frente a los daños ocasionados para la salud pública ante la posibilidad de una disemina-ción intencionada de este tipo de agentes en el medioambiente.Atendiendo a esta preocupación, en España se crea en 2009 una Red de Laborato-rios de Alerta Biológica, denominada “RE-LAB”. La RE-LAB constituye una infraestructura científico-técnica de apoyo al Sistema Nacional de Gestión de Crisis y la Administración General del Estado con el fin de dar una respuesta rápida, eficaz y coordinada contra las amenazas bioterroristas.1 INTRODUCCIÓN GENERAL 2 GLOSARIO 3 SIGLAS Y ABREVIATURAS 4 CONSIDERACIONES GENERALES EN LA TOMA DE MUESTRAS DE MICROORGANISMOSALTAMENTE PATÓGENOS EN MATRICES AMBIENTALES 5 PROCEDIMIENTO PARA LA TOMA DE MUESTRAS DE BIOAEROSOLES/AGENTES BIOLÓGICOS ALTAMENTE PATÓGENOS EN MATRIZ AIRE 6 PROCEDIMIENTO PARA LA TOMA DE MUESTRA DE MATRICES AMBIENTALES ACUÁTICAS PARA LA DETECCIÓN DE MICROORGANISMOS ALTAMENTE PATÓGENOS 7 PROCEDIMIENTO PARA LA TOMA DE MUESTRA DE SUELO Y SEDIMENTOS PARA LA DETECCIÓN DE MICROORGANISMOS ALTAMENTE PATÓGENOS 8 REQUISITOS DE CALIDAD SEGÚN NORMA UNE-EN ISO/IEC 17025:2005 PARA LA IMPLANTACIÓN DE UN SISTEMA DE CALIDAD PARA LA TOMA DE MUESTRA DE AGENTES PATÓGENOS ALTAMENTE PATÓGENOS EN MATRICES AMBIENTALES 9 ANEXOS 10 BIBLIOGRAFÍ

Evaluation of the Best Compromise Between the Urban Air Quality Monitoring Resolution by Diffusive Sampling and Resource Requirements

The need to collect data representative of overall urban pollution is all-important in order to monitor the population exposure. High spatial resolution monitoring using diffusive samplers allows studying of the urban pollutant distribution, thus enabling deeper investigation of their generation and diffusion mechanisms. Nevertheless, such a monitoring campaign has a certain cost. In this study we point out how to find the best compromise between the number of necessary measurements and the affordable costs for monitoring campaigns. We also describe an innovative method for the proper design of a fixed urban monitoring network by means of preliminary high spatial resolution campaigns using diffusive samplers. Four European capital cities (Dublin, Madrid, Paris and Rome) were monitored six times, each time for seven days. Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes (BTEX) and NO2 concentrations were measured at 146 sites in Dublin, 293 in Madrid, 339 in Paris and 290 in Rome. Multiscale grids have been drawn which ranged in mesh size from 500 m to 2 km. The statistical processing of data produced a twofold result: the creation of isoconcentration maps with geostatistical procedures, and an algorithm aimed at locating the minimum number of sampling sites where the fixed monitoring stations should be placed. Average urban levels estimated on the basis of these selected sites differ by less than 8% from those calculated on the whole populations of the sampled points. The aim of this work is to investigate how far the resolution of a monitoring campaign of urban pollution by diffusive sampling can be reduced, thus making the monitoring less expensive in terms of human and financial resources, while preserving the same quality of the results that could be achieved with a higher resolution. We found that there is no significant loss of information when the resolution of the monitoring grid for BTEX is lowered to a mesh size of 1.85 km, that is a sampling site each 3.4 km2, and that the minimum number of sampling sites to be used is N = 0.29 A, where A is the urban surface to be monitored (in km2). As the spatial distribution of NO2 is less sensitive to the distance from the emission source than that of BTEX, this relationship could be retained as a valid lower limit for the mesh grid size also for NO2 monitoring.JRC.H.4-Transport and air qualit

Standardisation of a European measurement method for the determination of anions and cations in PM2.5: results of field trial campaign and determination of measurement uncertainty

European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) Technical Committee 264 ‘Air Quality’ has recently produced a standard method for the measurements of anions and cations in PM2.5 within its Working Group 34 in response to the requirements of European Directive 2008/50/EC. It is expected that this method will be used in future by all Member States making measurements of the ionic content of PM2.5. This paper details the results of a field measurement campaign and the statistical analysis performed to validate this method, assess its uncertainty and define its working range to provide clarity and confidence in the underpinning science for future users of the method. The statistical analysis showed that, except for the lowest range of concentrations, the expanded combined uncertainty is expected to be below 30% at the 95%confidence interval for all ions except Cl-. However, if the analysis is carried out on the lower concentrations found at rural sites the uncertainty can be in excess of 50% for Cl-, Na+, K+ , Mg2+ and Ca2+. An estimation of the detection limit for all ions was also calculated and found to be 0.03 mg/m-3 or below.JRC.C.5-Air and Climat

International Comparison CCQM-P28: Ozone at Ambient Level

We report a pilot study organized within the Consultative Committee for Amount of Substance (CCQM), in which the ozone reference standards of 23 institutes have been compared to one common reference, the BIPM ozone reference standard, in a series of bilateral comparisons carried out between July 2003 and February 2005. The BIPM, which maintains as its reference standard a standard reference photometer (SRP) developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, United States), served as pilot laboratory. A total of 25 instruments were compared to the common reference standard, either directly (16 comparisons) or via a transfer standard (9 comparisons). The comparisons were made over the ozone mole fraction range 0 nmol/mol to 500 nmol/mol. Two reference methods for measuring ozone mole fractions in synthetic air were compared, thanks to the participation of two institutes maintaining a gas-phase titration system with traceability of measurements to primary gas standards of NO and NO2, while the 23 other instruments were based on UV absorption. In the first instance, each comparison was characterized by the two parameters of a linear equation, as well as their related uncertainties, computed with generalized least-squares regression software. Analysis of these results using the Birge ratio indicated an underestimation of the uncertainties associated with the measurement results of some of the ozone standards, particularly the NIST SRPs. As a final result of the pilot study, the difference from the reference value (BIPM-SRP27 measurement result) and its related uncertainty were calculated for each ozone standard at the two nominal ozone mole fractions of 80 nmol/mol and 420 nmol/mol.JRC.H.4-Transport and air qualit