Atmospheric Deposition of Benzo[a]pyrene: Developing a Spatial Pattern at a National Scale

Abstract

Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP), an indicator of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the atmosphere, is an important ambient air pollutant with significant human health and environmental effects. In the Czech Republic (CR), BaP, together with aerosol and ambient ozone, ranks (with respect to limit value exceedances and resulting population exposure) among the most problematic air pollutants. The aim of this study is to develop atmospheric deposition patterns of BaP in three years, namely 2012, 2015 and 2019, reflecting different BaP ambient levels. With respect to the available measurements, we accounted for dry deposition fluxes, neglecting wet contribution. We assumed, nevertheless, that the real atmospheric deposition is dominated by dry pathways in our conditions, which is supported by measurements from the rural site of Košetice. The dry deposition spatial pattern was constructed using an inferential approach, with two input layers, i.e., annual mean ambient air BaP concentrations, and deposition velocity of 0.89 cm·s−1. Though our results show an overall decrease in BaP loads over the years, the BaP deposition fluxes, in particular in the broader Ostrava region, remain very high. The presented maps can be considered an acceptable approximation of total BaP deposition and are useful for further detailed analysis of airborne BaP impacts on the environment.