Search results for "POLLUTANTs"
showing 10 items of 1125 documents
Urban air pollution and emergency room admissions for respiratory symptoms: a case-crossover study in Palermo, Italy
2011
Abstract Background Air pollution from vehicular traffic has been associated with respiratory diseases. In Palermo, the largest metropolitan area in Sicily, urban air pollution is mainly addressed to traffic-related pollution because of lack of industrial settlements, and the presence of a temperate climate that contribute to the limited use of domestic heating plants. This study aimed to investigate the association between traffic-related air pollution and emergency room admissions for acute respiratory symptoms. Methods From January 2004 through December 2007, air pollutant concentrations and emergency room visits were collected for a case-crossover study conducted in Palermo, Sicily. Ris…
Effect of deicing salts on urban soils and health status of roadside trees in the Opole region.
2004
This article reports on a study whose aim was to evaluate the impact of snow removal salts on urban soil properties and the health of roadside trees. The evaluation was done by chemical analyses of soil samples and plant matter combined with toxicity testing, performed with a Protoxkit F, a protozoan microbiotest. Samples were collected at 45 locations on three main roads in the town of Opole (Poland). The roads differed in the snow removal technology and amount of chemical substances (mostly NaCI) used on them during the winter. The study showed that when soil was exposed to a high level of NaCI, it tended to be more alkaline and also exhibited increased content of Na + and Cl - . The toxi…
A new approach for modeling dry deposition velocity of particles
2018
Abstract The dry deposition process is recognized as an important pathway among the various removal processes of pollutants in the atmosphere. In this field, there are several models reported in the literature useful to predict the dry deposition velocity of particles of different diameters but many of them are not capable of representing dry deposition phenomena for several categories of pollutants and deposition surfaces. Moreover, their applications is valid for specific conditions and if the data in that application meet all of the assumptions required of the data used to define the model. In this paper a new dry deposition velocity model based on an electrical analogy schema is propose…
Overview: On the transport and transformation of pollutants in the outflow of major population centres - Observational data from the EMeRGe European …
2022
Megacities and other major population centres (MPCs) worldwide are major sources of air pollution, both locally as well as downwind. The overall assessment and prediction of the impact of MPC pollution on tropospheric chemistry are challenging. The present work provides an overview of the highlights of a major new contribution to the understanding of this issue based on the data and analysis of the EMeRGe (Effect of Megacities on the transport and transformation of pollutants on the Regional to Global scales) international project. EMeRGe focuses on atmospheric chemistry, dynamics, and transport of local and regional pollution originating in MPCs. Airborne measurements, taking advantage of …
Perturbation vectors to evaluate air quality using lichens and bromeliads: a Brazilian case study.
2017
10 pages; International audience; Samples of one lichen species, Parmotrema crinitum, and one bromeliad species, Tillandsia usneoides, were collected in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at four sites differently affected by anthropogenic pollution. The concentrations of aluminum, cadmium, copper, iron, lanthanum, lead, sulfur, titanium, zinc, and zirconium were determined by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy. The environmental diagnosis was established by examining compositional changes via perturbation vectors, an underused family of methods designed to circumvent the problem of closure in any compositional dataset. The perturbation vectors between the reference s…
Data quality oriented procedure, for detailed mapping of heavy metals in urban topsoil as an approach to human health risk assessment
2021
Abstract Urban soils' health is important to the community because of the soils' potential use for recreational activities. A data quality-oriented approach to sampling design is proposed for performing soil representative surveys that gives support to defensible and statistically-based decisions. Krowoderski park in Cracow (Poland) was selected as a study case to investigate heavy metals (HMs) accumulation and to assess human risk exposure according to simulated scenarios. Statistical power was computed for optimizing the number of samples to compare HMs concentration against legal upper tolerance levels (LUTL). The samples' location was iteratively designed as random spatial distribution …
The influence of preparation methodology on the concentrations of heavy metals in Pleurozium schreberi moss samples prior to use in active biomonitor…
2020
AbstractActive biomonitoring is used to assess environmental pollution of elements such as heavy metals by indicator species such as mosses. They are used, among others, in urbanized areas where no indicator species are found. In such study areas, mosses collected from sites considered to be ecologically clean shall be exposed. In this context, it is very important to prepare the mosses properly before the exposure, so that the information received about the condition of the environment is reliable. In 2018, studies were conducted in the forested areas of southern Poland—in Opolskie Province. Pleurozium schreberi mosses were used in these studies. Atomic absorption spectrometry with flame a…
Bioavailability and assessment of heavy metal pollution in sediment cores off the Mejerda River Delta (Gulf of Tunis): How useful is a multiproxy app…
2016
International audience; Three core samples were taken from zones offshore from the Mejerda River Delta (Tunisia) and analyzed formajor and trace elements to assess their relationships with organic matter, monosulfides and carbonates, aswell as for pollution and bioavailability. Chemical speciation,ΣSEM/AVS, the enrichment factor (EF) and thegeo-accumulation index (I-geo) were used. Iron, cadmium, lead and zinc – the most frequently mined metalsin the Mejerda catchment – were found as contaminants in the offshore areas. Estimations of trace elementaccumulation using the EF and the I-geo index show that lead, and to a lesser extent zinc, are the most pollutingmetals off the Mejerda outlet. Ac…
Changes in air pollution during COVID-19 lockdown in Spain: a multi-city study
2021
Highlights • Variations in air quality in terms of CO, SO2, PM10, O3 and NO2 levels were studied • The lockdown of Spain was not able to reduce severe air pollution in all its forms • Significant reductions of NO2 levels were achieved in most cities • Increases of O3 pollution levels were found in several cities
Geochemical characterization and health risk assessment in two diversified environmental settings (Southern Italy).
2021
An integrated approach using chemical and microbial indicators has been tested in two different sites of the Campania Plain (Southern Italy) with different land use covering and different hydrogeological features in order: (1) to define the water-rock interaction processes, (2) to differentiate sources of pollution in a detailed way (3) to evaluate the degree of water quality in the studied alluvial aquifer and (4) to identify the most worrying elements for human's health. Groundwater have showed a HCO3-Ca signature for both investigated sites, and a progressive enrichment in alkali ions has been highlighted moving from the boundary of the plain toward the coastal areas, due to groundwater …