Air Quality Monitoring Network Design to Control Nitrogen Dioxide and Ozone, Applied in Granada, Spain

Abstract

This paper describes a method to design air quality monitoring networks for nitrogen dioxide and ozone and its application in Granada, a city located in Andalusia, southern Spain. The city has a population of 236,988 inhabitants, and traffic is its main source of air pollution. Sampling campaigns with passive diffusion samplers at 88 sites were carried out to obtain information on the pollution distribution in Granada. The average concentrations found for NO2 and O3 were 36.5 μg/m3 and 51.6 μg/m3, respectively. Maximum values of up to 57.1 μg/m3 NO2 were found in Granada city center and O3 reached 77.2 μg/m3 downwind from the emission source. After spatial interpolation of the obtained values with Geographical Information Systems, a selection of the best locations for the monitoring stations was made, in line with the macro- and microscale siting requirements of the European Directive 2008/50/EC on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe. Another sampling campaign with diffusive samplers was carried out in 2007 to determine if the locations of the air quality assessment stations were still representative for their zone. A correction was made in the control network following results of this verification campaign.