Source apportionment of ambient pollution levels in Guayaquil, Ecuador.

In this study, the relative contributions of main emission sources to the typical ambient concentrations of key pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide (SO), nitrogen dioxide (NO), carbon monoxide (CO), and particulate matter (PM and PM) in Guayaquil, Ecuador, were investigated. A previous urban emissions inventory for mobile sources was expanded to include other transportation means and main industrial activities using the EMEP/EEA methodology to achieve this objective. The WRF/CALMET/CALPUFF modeling system was used to simulate the annual spatiotemporal distribution of air pollution in the city.

Is air pollution exposure linked to household income? Spatial analysis of Community Multiscale Air Quality Model results for Madrid.

This study explores the potential correlation between income and exposure to air pollution for the city of Madrid, Spain and its neighboring municipalities. Madrid is a well-known European air pollution hotspot with a high mortality burden attributable to nitrogen dioxide (NO) and fine particulate matter (PM). Statistical analyses were carried out using electoral district level data on gross household income (GHI), and NO and PM concentrations in air obtained from a mesoscale air quality model for the study area.

Real-Time Measurements of Indoor-Outdoor Exchange of Gaseous and Particulate Atmospheric Pollutants in an Urban Area.

Air pollution is one of the greatest environmental risks to health, causing millions of deaths and deleterious health effects worldwide, especially in urban areas where citizens are exposed to high ambient levels of pollutants, also influencing indoor air quality (IAQ). Many sources of indoor air are fairly obvious and well known, but the contribution of outside sources to indoor air still leads to significant uncertainties, in particular the influence that environmental variables have on outdoor/indoor pollutant exchange mechanisms. This is a critical aspect to consider in IAQ studies.

Oxidation capacity changes in the atmosphere of large urban areas in Europe: Modelling and experimental campaigns in atmospheric simulation chambers.

Air pollution is a major concern for human health and the environment. Consequently, environmental standards have become stricter to improve air quality. Thanks to this, the ambient levels of O precursors such as VOCs and NO have decreased.

The impact of wildfires on air pollution and health across land use categories in Brazil over a 16-year period.

Forest fires cause many environmental impacts, including air pollution. Brazil is a very fire-prone region where few studies have investigated the impact of wildfires on air quality and health. We proposed to test two hypotheses in this study: i) the wildfires in Brazil have increased the levels of air pollution and posed a health hazard in 2003-2018, and ii) the magnitude of this phenomenon depends on the type of land use and land cover (e.

A high resolution vehicular emissions inventory for Ecuador using the IVE modelling system.

Air pollutants caused by traffic has become a topic of global interest due to its impact on human health and the environment, making high-resolution emission inventories effective mechanisms for air quality management. This study proposes the development of a high-resolution inventory of vehicle emissions in Ecuador using the IVE modelling system, which was developed for its use in third world countries. The required data was collected in several provinces of the country, determining vehicle intensity, driving patterns, departure patterns, environmental variables, and vehicle technologies.

On-road vehicle emission inventory and its spatial and temporal distribution in the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Emissions from mobile sources have become a major concern for health, environmental sustainability and climate change and high-resolution inventories are needed to support the design and assessment of abatement measures in urban areas. This study addresses the development of a traffic emissions inventory for Guayaquil, the second largest city in Ecuador, using the International Vehicle Emissions Model (IVE). Emissions are allocated with a spatial resolution of 1 km × 1 km and a temporal resolution of 1 h using a top-down methodology.

Analysis of emissions-driven changes in the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere in Europe.

Anthropogenic emissions in Europe have been gradually reduced thanks to a combination of factors, including restrictive regulation and policy implementation, fuel switching, technological developments, and improved energy efficiencies. Many measures have been specifically introduced to meet the annual and hourly limit value of NO for the protection of human health, mainly targeting traffic emissions. Due to NO reduction policies in Europe, NO levels have generally declined, but O concentrations have been found to increase.

Predicting the Olea pollen concentration with a machine learning algorithm ensemble.

Air pollution in large cities produces numerous diseases and even millions of deaths annually according to the World Health Organization. Pollen exposure is related to allergic diseases, which makes its prediction a valuable tool to assess the risk level to aeroallergens. However, airborne pollen concentrations are difficult to predict due to the inherent complexity of the relationships among both biotic and environmental variables.

Health impact assessment by the implementation of Madrid City air-quality plan in 2020.

Objectives: Air pollutant concentrations in many urban areas are still above the legal and recommended limits that are set to protect the citizens' health. Madrid is one of the cities where traffic causes high NO levels. In this context, Madrid City Council launched the Air Quality and Climate Change Plan for the city of Madrid (Plan A), a local strategy approved by the previous government in 2017.

Impact of weather changes on air quality and related mortality in Spain over a 25 year period [1993-2017].

Climate change is a major public health concern. In addition to its direct impacts on temperature patterns and extreme weather events, climate change affects public health indirectly through its influence on air quality. Pollution trends are not only affected by emissions changes but also by weather changes.

Population dynamics based on mobile phone data to improve air pollution exposure assessments.

Air pollution is one of the greatest challenges cities are facing today and improving air quality is a pressing need to reduce negative health impacts. In order to efficiently evaluate which are the most appropriate policies to reduce the impact of urban pollution sources (such as road traffic), it is essential to conduct rigorous population exposure assessments. One of the main limitations associated with those studies is the lack of information about population distribution in the city along the day (population dynamics).

Application of a short term air quality action plan in Madrid (Spain) under a high-pollution episode - Part II: Assessment from multi-scale modelling.

Air pollution continues to be one of the main issues in urban areas. In addition to air quality plans and emission abatement policies, additional measures for high pollution episodes are needed to avoid exceedances of hourly limit values under unfavourable meteorological conditions such as the Madrid's short-term action NO protocol. In December 2016 there was a strong atmospheric stability episode that turned out in generalized high NO levels, causing the stage 3 of the NO protocol to be triggered for the first time in Madrid (29th December).

Application of a short term air quality action plan in Madrid (Spain) under a high-pollution episode - Part I: Diagnostic and analysis from observations.

Exceedances of NO hourly limit value (200 μg·m) imply the need to implement short term action plans to avoid adverse effects on human health in urban areas. The Madrid City Council applied the stage 3 of the NO protocol during a high-pollution episode under stable meteorological conditions on December 2016 for the first time. This included road traffic access restrictions to the city centre (50% of conventional private vehicles based on plate numbers).

Estimation of PM-bound manganese concentration near a ferromanganese alloy plant by atmospheric dispersion modelling.

Numerous studies have associated air manganese (Mn) exposure with negative health effects, primarily neurotoxic disorders. This work presents a description of the emission and dispersion of PM-bound Mn from industrial sources in the Santander bay area, Northern Spain. A detailed day-specific emission estimation was made and assessed for the main Mn source, a manganese alloy production plant under 8 different scenarios.

The influence of ocean halogen and sulfur emissions in the air quality of a coastal megacity: The case of Los Angeles.

The oceans are the main source of natural halogen and sulfur compounds, which have a significant influence on the oxidizing capacity of the marine atmosphere; however, their impact on the air quality of coastal cities is currently unknown. We explore the effect of marine halogens (Cl, Br and I) and dimethyl sulfide (DMS) on the air quality of a large coastal city through a set of high-resolution (4-km) air quality simulations for the urban area of Los Angeles, US, using the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ model). The results indicate that marine halogen emissions decrease ozone and nitrogen dioxide levels up to 5ppbv and 2.

Microscale traffic simulation and emission estimation in a heavily trafficked roundabout in Madrid (Spain).

This paper presents the evaluation of emissions from vehicle operations in a domain of 300m×300m covering a complex urban roundabout with high traffic density in Madrid. Micro-level simulation was successfully applied to estimate the emissions on a scale of meters. Two programs were used: i) VISSIM to simulate the traffic on the square and to compute velocity-time profiles; and ii) VERSIT+micro through ENVIVER that uses VISSIM outputs to compute the related emissions at vehicle level.

An integrated assessment of two decades of air pollution policy making in Spain: Impacts, costs and improvements.

This paper analyses the effects of policy making for air pollution abatement in Spain between 2000 and 2020 under an integrated assessment approach with the AERIS model for number of pollutants (NOx/NO2, PM10/PM2.5, O3, SO2, NH3 and VOC). The analysis of the effects of air pollution focused on different aspects: compliance with the European limit values of Directive 2008/50/EC for NO2 and PM10 for the Spanish air quality management areas; the evaluation of impacts caused by the deposition of atmospheric sulphur and nitrogen on ecosystems; the exceedance of critical levels of NO2 and SO2 in forest areas; the analysis of O3-induced crop damage for grapes, maize, potato, rice, tobacco, tomato, watermelon and wheat; health impacts caused by human exposure to O3 and PM2.

A methodology to estimate uncertainty for emission projections through sensitivity analysis.

Unlabelled: Air pollution abatement policies must be based on quantitative information on current and future emissions of pollutants. As emission projections uncertainties are inevitable and traditional statistical treatments of uncertainty are highly time/resources consuming, a simplified methodology for nonstatistical uncertainty estimation based on sensitivity analysis is presented in this work. The methodology was applied to the "with measures" scenario for Spain, concretely over the 12 highest emitting sectors regarding greenhouse gas and air pollutants emissions.

Air quality modeling and mortality impact of fine particles reduction policies in Spain.

Background: In recent years, Spain has implemented a number of air quality control measures that are expected to lead to a future reduction in fine particle concentrations and an ensuing positive impact on public health.

Objectives: We aimed to assess the impact on mortality attributable to a reduction in fine particle levels in Spain in 2014 in relation to the estimated level for 2007.

Methods: To estimate exposure, we constructed fine particle distribution models for Spain for 2007 (reference scenario) and 2014 (projected scenario) with a spatial resolution of 16×16km(2).