Airborne Particles during a Firework Festival in Belvedere M.mo, South-Western Italian Coast

Mariantonia Bencardino,Valentino Mannarino,Francesco D’Amore,Virginia Andreoli,Nicola Pirrone,Jessica Castagna,Sacha Moretti,Francesca Sprovieri,Attilio Naccarato

doi:10.4236/ojap.2018.72009

Abstract

The effects of a Summer Firework Festival on the air quality were studied for the first time in a rural area of Southern Italy. The case study analyzes the physical-chemical properties of airborne particles collected during the Note di Fuoco (NDF) Festival, which took place in Belvedere M.mo in 2016. The sampling period was peculiar since in one week three different kinds of events have succeeded: three days during the NDF Festival with the concurrence of the festival and the firework displays, one day with the typical street Market involving food stalls and specialty shops, and three days with no specific events, considered as background conditions. Particulate Matter in different two size fractions (PM2.5 and PM10) was simultaneously collected on a daily basis and then chemically analyzed for major and rare metal content as well as for organic and elemental carbon determination. Levels of particles were even below the European air quality limit values. However, the day with the country market and during the three days of the NDF festival, the finer and respirable particulate fraction, PM2.5, showed an increase of 46% and 84%, respectively, over the mean concentration values observed during the background days. Both elemental and organic carbon, even in the finer fraction showed an increment up to 30%. All major, trace and rare elements were found in higher concentrations during the festival with respect to those recorded in days with no events. In our case study, K was recognized as the best fireworks tracer because its level doubled during the festival. Typical firework tracers like Fe, Ti, Mn, Pb and Sr resulted in greater concentrations, up to 50%.

Highlights

Fireworks are products of pyrotechnic industry that are displayed throughout the world to celebrate special events (New Years Eve, National Day) as well as traditional and religious festivals
This paper reports simultaneous monitoring of 13 elements, as well as Elemental and Organic Carbon (EC and organic carbon (OC)) in ambient aerosols collected during the 2016 Note di Fuoco (NDF) Festival in the town of Belvedere M.mo, Calabria, South Italy
We registered no rain in our summer sampling period with high temperature as those typically recorded during the warmest month of July and August in the Mediterranean region [39]

Summary

Introduction

Fireworks are products of pyrotechnic industry that are displayed throughout the world to celebrate special events (New Years Eve, National Day) as well as traditional and religious festivals. The scale of fireworks displays can vary from as small as a birthday party up to a national day celebration [1] or one-off worldwide events, such as the millennium celebrations in 2000 [2]. Fireworks displays are becoming more frequent and are increasing in both their number and quality [3]. The tradition of fireworks in Italy is quite common with greater emphasis in the Southern regions. In literature there is only well documented study carried out by Vecchi et al (2008) [10] focusing on a firework episode in Milan occurring in correspondence of the World Fifa 2006

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Results

Conclusion