Assessment of Impacts Produced by Anthropogenic Sources in a Little City near an Important Industrial Area (Modugno, Southern Italy)

An annual monitoring campaign of VOCs, consisting of twelve sampling periods, was carried out from June 2008 to June 2009 in Modugno, a city located in the Apulia region (Southern Italy), in order to assess the urban air quality, identify the main emission sources, and quantify the cancer and no-cancer risk attributable to inhalation exposures. Monitoring, carried out by using the Radiello diffusive samplers, was conducted in eleven sampling sites throughout the city taking into account the traffic density and the architecture of the city. From the study of the data, it was found that, among all considered VOCs, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes (BTEX) are the pollutants at higher concentration. The analysis of VOC concentrations, the study of the topography of the city, and the use of different diagnostic ratios between the BTEX species showed that the vehicular traffic emissions were the predominant source of VOCs in the urban area of Modugno. Despite that the annual concentration of benzene is lower than the regulatory limit, the estimation of cancer risk showed that the global lifetime cancer risk attributed to the investigated VOC exposure was not negligible and therefore should be taken into account in future regulatory approaches

Total p-PAH Levels Nearby a Complex Industrial Area: A Tailored Monitoring Experiment to Assess the Impact of Emission Sources

In this study, data on the hourly concentrations of the total particle-bound Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (p-PAHs) collected between 1 August 2013 and 31 August 2014 by the air quality fence monitoring network of the biggest European steel plant, were analyzed. In contrast with what was predicted, the total p-PAH concentration did not decrease with distance from the steel plant, and higher concentrations were registered at the Orsini site, in the urban settlement, relative to the Parchi site, which is nearest to the coke ovens. Therefore, in order to identify and explain the cause of these high concentrations, a tailored monitoring experiment was carried out on a specific monitoring pathway by using a total p-PAHs monitor placed onto a cart. The real-time monitoring of the total p-PAH concentration on the road revealed to be a useful tool, which identified vehicular traffic as an important source of p-PAHs and highlighted the possible high short-term effect that vehicular traffic sources could have on the health of the exposed human population. Moreover, the study focused attention on the importance of the spatial representativeness of fixed monitoring stations, especially in a highly complex industrial area such as Taranto (Southern Italy)

A case-study of microsensors for landfill air-pollution monitoring applications

The purpose of this paper is to present a research study on application of low-cost solid-state gas microsensors for odour control and air-pollution monitoring in a landfill. The method introduces microsensors based on commercial devices of n-type metal oxides for cost-effective and real-time monitoring. This research provides a comparative study and assessment of the sensor response for odour detection and potential continuous monitoring of methane (CH4) and Non-Methanic Hydro-Carbons (NMHC) in a landfill. This leads to an insight into low-cost gas sensing capability for practical applications. The environmental measurements have been performed by a sensor-array with multiple sensing elements for high sensitivity and broad selectivity detection. This sensor technology may be useful for the development of a portable, compact, wireless and cost-effective system for gas monitoring applications and industrial process control. The results are discussed as the outcome of an experimental work carried in field at a landfill and demonstrate the efficiency of the low-cost chemo-resistors array for odour sensing and environmental monitoring. Additional long-term investigations need to address some drawbacks on sensors stability and cross-sensitivity

Integration of automatic remote systems for olfactory annoyance detection and evaluation in the city of Taranto

Odour annoyance represents one of the most emerging aspects related to odour emissions, produced by industrial plants. The possibility of making objective this type of annoyance constitutes a complex issue to face, due to the subjective features of the olfactory perception and to the difficulty to identify with certainty the source of emissions. To the purpose, some international guidelines consider the employment of human assessors as a valuable method for the impact evaluation of an industrial plant on the territory (by means of administration of questionnaires addressed to the residents or field inspections, properly planned). These approaches provide only qualitative and quantitative indexes of annoyance and require some months of investigation before obtaining results. This paper focuses on the development of a methodology for the detection and evaluation of olfactory annoyance, integrating automatic remote systems able to record the olfactory perception of human receptors and to collect odour samples in real time. The experimental study has been applied in the city of Taranto, in the South of Italy, where the residents have been reporting so much discomfort for odour emissions, produced by plants located in the industrial area. The integrated system requires the direct involvement of population; by means of a phone switchboard, the residents communicate in real time the perception of odour events and their intensity (according to an intensity scale of three levels). The different warnings are displayed on a map together with the meteorological data in order to associate the emissions to the sources on the territory. According to a chosen routine (number of warning for index of intensity recorded in a defined time range), remote automatic sampling systems, located in particular sites on the territory, are activated in order to collect a representative sample, that could be analyzed through dynamic olfactometry. In this paper, the preliminary results obtained during the experimental campaign will be presented, underlining the advantages connected with a remote sampling

Statistical investigations on PAH concentrations at industrial sampling site

Human exposure to combustion emissions including the associated airborne fine particles and mutagenic constituents have been studied in populations in different countries. PAH compounds are generated by combustion of organic matter in mobile sources as well as in stationary sources; they play a major role in defining the overall toxicity of atmospheric particulate matter (PM) although they are negligible in the total mass of the PM. The aim of this work was to apply statistical investigations on PAH concentrations measured at industrial sampling site in Taranto (Apulia Region, South of Italy) from May 2009 to May 2010. These data, related to gaseous pollutants at different meteorological conditions, allowed to determine the relationships between industrial emissions and ambient concentrations at receptor site