Epiphytic Cryptogams as Bioindicators of Air Quality in a Tropical Andean City

Air pollution is one of the main environmental problems in developed and developing countries. Epiphytic cryptogams (bryophytes and lichens) are proposed as a reliable indicator to detect environmental changes, given to their sensitivity to pollutants. In this study we evaluated air quality in the city of Ambato using bryophytes and epiphytic lichens on three land uses (urban, peri-urban and control). In each zone we selected ten trees (a total of 90 trees) for each station (a total of nine stations), where we recorded the frequency and cover of epiphytic cryptogams in a quadrat of 10 × 50 cm that was divided into 5 × 5 cm squares. Differences in richness, index of atmospheric purity (IAP) and diversity were analyzed using a generalized linear model (GLM) and changes in species composition using multivariate analysis. We recorded 39 species of cryptogams (25 lichens and 14 bryophytes). Richness, diversity and index of atmospheric purity were higher in the control zone compared to the urbanized zones. Community composition changed between the different zones, with increasing differences between the control and urban zones. The urban areas of the city of Ambato were identified with high levels of air pollution due to their lower diversity related to higher vehicular traffic and industrial activities (e.g., footwear and textile factories, tanneries). Thus, epiphytic cryptogams are a fast and low-cost method for air quality assessment in tropical areas.

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Assessment of heterogenity of air pollution within an urban canopy

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-2822 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Vivien Voss ◽

K. Heinke Schlünzen ◽

David Grawe

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Air Quality ◽

Citizen Science ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Hot Spot ◽

Low Cost ◽

Urban Canopy ◽

Limit Values ◽

Data Standard ◽

The City

Air pollution is an important topic within urban areas.&#160; Limit values as given in the European Guidelines are introduced to reduce negative effects on humans and vegetation.&#160; Exceedances of the limit values are to be assessed using measurements.&#160; In case of found exceedances of the limit values, the local authorities need to act to reduce pollution levels. Highest values are found for several pollutants (NOx, NO2, particles) within densely build-up urban areas with traffic emissions being the major source and dispersion being very much impacted by the urban structures.&#160; The quality assured measuring network used by the authorities is often too coarse to determine the heterogeneity in the concentration field. Low cost sample devices as employed in several citizen science projects might help to overcome the data sparsity. Volunteers measure the air quality at many sites, contribute to the measurement networks and provide the data on the web. However, the questions arising are: a) Are these data of sufficient high quality to provide results comparable to those of the quality assured networks? b) Is the network density sufficient to determine concentration patterns within the urban canopy layer? One-year data from a citizen science network, which measures particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5) were compared to measurements provided by the local environmental agency, using two hot-spot areas in the city of Hamburg as an example. To determine how well the measurements agree with each other, a regression analyses was performed dependent on seasonal and diurnal cycles. Additionally, model simulations with the microscale obstacle resolving model MITRAS were performed for two characteristic building structures and different meteorological situations. The model results were used to determine local hot spots as well as areas where measurements might represent the concentration of particles for the urban quarter. The low cost sensor measurements show a general agreement to the city&#8217;s measurements, however, the values per sensor differ. Moreover, the measurements of the low-cost-sensor show an unrealistic dependence on relative humidity, resulting in over- or underestimations in certain cases. The model results clearly show that only a few sites allow measurements to be representative for a city quarter. The measurements of the citizen science project can provide a good overview about the tendencies of the air quality, but are currently not of sufficient quality to provide measurements calling for legal action.The model results were used for the project AtMoDat. AtMoDat is an attempt to create a data standard for obstacle resolving models based on the existing Climate and Forecast (CF) conventions. A web-based survey is developed to get information on the requirements for the data standard. The next step is to extend the collection of model characteristics and eventually to provide a generic scheme.Acknowledgements This work contributes to project &#8220;AtMoDat&#8221; funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research under the funding number 16QK02C. Responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors.

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Contribution of Local and Transboundary Air Pollution to the Urban Air Quality of Fukuoka, Japan

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos12040431 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 431

Author(s):

Ayako Yoshino ◽

Akinori Takami ◽

Keiichiro Hara ◽

Chiharu Nishita-Hara ◽

Masahiko Hayashi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Air Quality ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Air Pollutants ◽

Regional Scale ◽

Gaseous Species ◽

Transboundary Air Pollution ◽

Local Air Pollution ◽

The City

Transboundary air pollution (TAP) and local air pollution (LAP) influence the air quality of urban areas. Fukuoka, located on the west side of Japan and affected by TAP from the Asian continent, is a unique example for understanding the contribution of LAP and TAP. Gaseous species and particulate matter (PM) were measured for approximately three weeks in Fukuoka in the winter of 2018. We classified two distinctive periods, LAP and TAP, based on wind speed. The classification was supported by variations in the concentration of gaseous species and by backward trajectories. Most air pollutants, including NOx and PM, were high in the LAP period and low in the TAP period. However, ozone was the exception. Therefore, our findings suggest that reducing local emissions is necessary. Ozone was higher in the TAP period, and the variation in ozone concentration was relatively small, indicating that ozone was produced outside of the city and transported to Fukuoka. Thus, air pollutants must also be reduced at a regional scale, including in China.

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Measure particulate matter by yourself: data-quality monitoring in a citizen science project

Journal of Sensors and Sensor Systems ◽

10.5194/jsss-8-317-2019 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 317-328 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Aboubakr Benabbas ◽

Martin Geißelbrecht ◽

Gabriel Martin Nikol ◽

Lukas Mahr ◽

Daniel Nähr ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Particulate Matter ◽

Air Quality ◽

Data Quality ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Low Cost ◽

Quality Monitoring ◽

Sensor Data ◽

And Control ◽

Future Work ◽

The Impact

Abstract. The concern about air quality in urban areas and the impact of particulate matter (PM) on public health is turning into a big debate. A good solution to sensitize people to this issue is to involve them in the process of air quality monitoring. This paper presents contributions in the field of PM measurements using low-cost sensors. We show how a low-cost PM sensor can be extended to transfer data not only over Wi-Fi but also over the LoRa protocol. Then, we identify some of the correlations existing in the data through data analysis. Afterwards, we show how semantic technologies can help model and control sensor data quality in an increasing PM sensor network. We finally wrap up with a conclusion and plans for future work.

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Development of a low-cost outdoor carbon monoxide analyzer applied to the city of Oran, Algeria.

10.21203/rs.3.rs-38652/v1 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Farid RAHAL ◽

Noureddine BENABADJI ◽

Mohamed BENCHERIF ◽

Mohamed Menaouer BENCHERIF

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Carbon Monoxide ◽

Air Quality ◽

Electrochemical Sensor ◽

Low Cost ◽

Atmospheric Pollutants ◽

Pollution Monitoring ◽

Coefficient Of Determination ◽

Air Pollution Monitoring ◽

The City

Abstract In Algeria, air pollution is classified as a major risk by the law. However, this risk is underestimated because there is no operational network for measuring air quality on a continuous basis.Despite the heavy investments made to equip several cities with these measurement systems, they are out of order due to a lack of continuous financial support.The alternative to the absence of these air pollution measurement networks can come from the recent development of electrochemical sensor technologies for air quality monitoring which arouses a certain interest because of their miniaturization, low energy consumption and low cost.We developed a low-cost outdoor carbon monoxide analyzer called APOMOS (Air pollution Monitoring System) based on electrochemical sensor managed by microcontroller. An application developed with the Python language makes it possible to manage process and analyze the collected data.In order to validate the APOMOS system, the recorded measurements are compared with measurements taken by a conventional analyzer.Comparison of the measurements resulting from conventional analyzer and those resulting from the APOMOS system gives a coefficient of determination of 98.39 %.Two versions of this system have been designed. A fixed version and another embedded, equipped with a GPS sensor. These 2 variants were used in the city of Oran in Algeria to measure the concentration of carbon monoxide continuously.The targeted pollutant is carbon monoxide. However, the design of the APOMOS system allows its evolution in an easy way in order to integrate other sensors concerning the various atmospheric pollutants.

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Ambient Air Quality Assessment in the Grand Casablanca Area (Morocco): Impact of Road Traffic Emissions for the 2013-2016 Period

Energy and Earth Science ◽

10.22158/ees.v1n1p1 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 1 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Manal Inchaouh ◽

Kenza Khomsi ◽

Pr. Mohamed Tahiri

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Air Quality ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Road Traffic ◽

Ambient Air ◽

Traffic Emissions ◽

Road Traffic Emissions ◽

Critical Areas ◽

Air Quality Assessment ◽

Road Traffic Pollution

Air Pollution is a serious hazard worldwide especially in urban areas. Road traffic is the main cause of pollution in agglomerations that are confronted to an excess of pollutants due to traffic intensity and the dominance of diesel cars. This paper presents the assessment of road traffic pollution in the Grand Casablanca area. Data used are the result of simultaneous measurements at thirteen sites located in the Grand Casablanca. Available data cover 4 years period (2013-2016). Traffic-related air pollutants are reviewed in order to assess their impact on the local air quality. It include nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particulate matter (PM10), carbon monoxide (CO) and Benzene (C6H6). Annual evolutions are presented and compared to national air quality standards; NO2 annual trends are also evaluated. The [NO]/[NO2] emissions ratio calculation allows then to characterize the measurement sites against road traffic. The paper focuses on determining the contribution of road traffic emissions on air quality modifying; we found spatial variability in traffic pollutants. The results pointed out that road traffic and conditions are the main causes of air pollution in the area and the analysis provide a quick view of the relatively critical areas that need more action to reduce this pollution.

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Low-cost air pollution monitoring system—an opportunity for reducing the health risk associated with physical activity in polluted air

PeerJ ◽

10.7717/peerj.10041 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

pp. e10041

Author(s):

Zenon Nieckarz ◽

Jerzy A. Zoladz

Keyword(s):

Physical Activity ◽

Air Pollution ◽

Air Quality ◽

Monitoring System ◽

Low Cost ◽

Time Of Day ◽

Pollution Monitoring ◽

Air Pollution Monitoring ◽

Identical Construction ◽

The City

The issue of air pollution by particulate matter (PM) concerns many places in the world. At the same time, many residents undertake physical activity (recreation, rehabilitation, sport) in the open air. Generally, the amount of dust concentration depends on both the place (center or periphery of the city) and the time of day. In the present study we describe the outcome of monitoring of the state of air pollution by particle matter (PM10) in the Kraków agglomeration area in order to show that it can provide information concerning air quality in the area where people practice varied kinds of sports in the open air. The measurements of PM10 have been made by a few stations with identical construction working as one network. The details of the air pollution monitoring system and its data quality verification have been described. The network stations made multipoint observations across the Kraków Metropolitan Area during the year 2017 in eight locations. The locations selected represent a diverse spectrum of terrain conditions in which the Kraków agglomeration community undertakes physical activity. For most months of 2017, the minimum monthly average 4-hour PM10 concentrations were recorded between 10–14 h, regardless of location, whereas the maximum was between 18–22. We also noticed a huge differences in the average monthly value of PM10 in some locations within the Kraków agglomeration—ranging between 4.9–339.0 µg m−3. This indicates that some regions of the city are more suitable for performance of physical activity in the open air than others. In conclusion, we postulate that a low-cost air pollution monitoring system is capable of providing valuable information concerning air quality in a given region, which seems to be of importance also to people who practice varied sports activities in the open air.

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Urban-Scale NO2 Prediction with Sensors Aboard Bicycles: A Comparison of Statistical Methods Using Synthetic Observations

Atmosphere ◽

10.3390/atmos11091014 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (9) ◽

pp. 1014

Author(s):

Christophe Bertero ◽

Jean-François Léon ◽

Gilles Trédan ◽

Mathieu Roy ◽

Alexandre Armengaud

Keyword(s):

Air Quality ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Ad Hoc ◽

Low Cost ◽

Ambient Air ◽

Regional Air Quality ◽

Navigation Service ◽

Physical Features ◽

Along Track ◽

The City

Mobile devices for city-scale air quality monitoring is receiving increasing attention due to the advent of low-cost and miniaturized sensors. Mobility and crowdsensing have emerged as a new means to investigate the ambient air quality in urban areas. However, the design of the network (e.g., number of sensors per unit area) and the scientific interpretation of collected data with an ad hoc method are still challenging. In this paper, we focus on the use of a fleet of private bicycles to monitor NO2 concentrations in the city of Marseille, France. The study is based on synthetic observations generated by means of a regional air quality simulation system at a spatial resolution of 25 m × 25 m and simulated bike trips that are randomly generated in the city. The bike trips correspond to a maximum of 4500 bike commuters and are generated using a web-based navigation service. Simulated bike tracks are validated using available statistics on bike counts. Each bike track is associated with the along-track corresponding NO2 concentrations collected from the air quality simulations and physical features on the ground collected from Open Street Map. Spatialization of the information collected aboard the bikes is tested by using three different algorithms: kriging, land-use regression (LUR) and neural network (NN). LUR and NN show that the fleet can be limited to below 100 bikes while the performance of kriging is steadily increasing with the number of bikes. Increasing the sample distance above 200 m also impairs the citywide prediction of simulated NO2 concentrations.

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Temporal patterns and trends of air pollution over distinct European urban areas

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-9303 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Vera Rodrigues ◽

Carla Gama ◽

Ana Ascenso ◽

Kevin Oliveira ◽

Sílvia Coelho ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Air Pollution ◽

Particulate Matter ◽

Air Quality ◽

Urban Areas ◽

The Other ◽

Limit Values ◽

Legal Standards ◽

Residential Heating ◽

Other Hand ◽

The City

European cities have made significant progress over the last decades towards a clean air. Despite all this progress, several urban areas are frequently exceeding air quality levels allowed by the European legal standards. The ClairCity project funded by the H2020 program addressed air pollution bringing a key missing factor in the way cities and societies organized themselves and work: citizens at the heart not only of the air pollution issues, but also of the solution, focusing on their behaviour, activities and practices. In this work, the ClairCity European pilot cities and regions (Bristol in the UK, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Ljubljana in Slovenia, Sosnowiec in Poland, the Aveiro region in Portugal and the Liguria region around Genoa in Italy) are studied in terms of air quality for a 10 year period regarding the main atmospheric pollutants over urban areas, namely particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and ozone.Therefore, the main objective of this work is to present a comprehensive diagnosis of the air quality and its main emission sources for each case study. The concentrations trends in the different typology of monitoring stations (background, traffic and industrial) were addressed, together with the knowledge of daily, weekly and seasonal pollution patterns to better understand the city specific profiles and to characterise pollutant dynamics and variations in multiple locations. Each city/ region faces different issues and causes of air pollution, but all of these case studies have been working on to improve their air quality. In Bristol there have been strong downward trends in many air pollutants, but the levels of NO2 remain persistently high and of concern, with transport the key contributor. PM on the other hand is not widely monitored in Bristol, but background levels at least are under limit values. Similarly, the main sources of air pollution in Amsterdam are traffic, in particular for NO2, and international shipping. Decreasing emissions and concentration levels point to some success of Amsterdam air quality policies in recent years. PM10 exceedances are a seasonal pollution problem in Ljubljana, with the main particulate matter sources attributed to residential heating, which is still significantly outdated in some parts of the city, where households still heat with burning wood and biomass during winter. The most pressing issue for air quality within Sosnowiec is emissions from residential heating. Particulate matter are the main critical pollutants, linked with the use of inefficient heating systems, together with poor quality fuels, in winter. On the other hand, NO2 limit values are also exceeded in Sosnowiec, but in comparison to the low-stack emissions, the problem is far smaller. On contrary, air quality in the Aveiro region is relatively good, due to an overall relatively low population density in the region, and an open landscape in a maritime climate. PM10 and O3 exceedances do occur occasionally. While, exceedances of NO2 and O3 concentrations are still problematic in Liguria region, with road transport, industrial plants and port activities being the main contributors to these problems.

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Air quality assessment using the Pollen Abortion assay in Tradescantia pallida in a Mid-sized City in Southern Brazil

Revista de la Sociedad Científica del Paraguay ◽

10.32480/rscp.2021.26.1.6 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 26 (1) ◽

pp. 6-16

Author(s):

Leonardo de Vasconcellos Ceglinski ◽

Edariane Menestrino Garcia ◽

Fernanda Oliveira Reis ◽

Ronan Adler Tavella ◽

Flavio Manoel Rodrigues da Silva Júnior

Keyword(s):

Air Quality ◽

Air Pollutants ◽

Environmental Changes ◽

Low Cost ◽

Control Point ◽

Pollen Abortion ◽

Air Quality Assessment ◽

Tradescantia Pallida ◽

Air Quality Monitoring Stations ◽

Sessile Organisms

Urbanization is an important source of air pollutants that can compromise human health. In developing countries, such as Brazil, most cities do not have air quality monitoring stations. Assessing air quality through plant species has gained recognized prominence, as they are sessile organisms and sensitive to environmental changes. Pollen abortion assay in Tradescantia pallida is a fast and low-cost bioassay that can be implemented in passive biomonitoring scenarios. The present study aimed to use the pollen abortion assay in T. pallida to assess air quality in the municipality of Rio Grande, RS, Brazil and the possible relationship with vehicular flow. A relation was found between the highest rate of pollen abortion and the sites where there was greater vehicular flow and ozone levels, while at the control point, the lowest rate of pollen abortion among the others was found, corroborating the hypothesis that air pollution together with high levels of ozone from vehicles, impair plant pollination.

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