Abstract

Residential wood combustion is a widespread practice in Europe with a serious impact on air quality, especially in mountainous areas. While there is a significant number of studies conducted in deep urbanized valleys and basins, little is known about the air pollution processes in rural shallow hollows where around 30 % of the people in mountainous areas across Europe live. We aim to determine the influence of ground temperature inversions on wood combustion aerosol pollution in hilly, rural areas. The study uses Retje karst hollow (Loški Potok, Slovenia) as representative site for mountainous and hilly rural areas in central and southeastern Europe with residential wood combustion. Sampling with a mobile monitoring platform along the hollow was performed in December 2017 and January 2018. The backpack mobile monitoring platform was used for the determination of equivalent black carbon (eBC) and particulate matter (PM) mass concentrations along the hollow. To assure high quality of mobile measurement data, intercomparisons of mobile instruments with reference instruments were performed at two air quality stations during every run. Our study showed that aerosol pollution events in the relief depression were associated with high local emission intensities originating almost entirely from residential wood burning and shallow temperature inversions (58 m on average). The eBC and PM mass concentrations showed stronger associations with the potential temperature gradient (R2 = 0.8) than with any other meteorological parameters taken into account (ambient temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, wind direction and precipitation). The strong association between the potential temperature gradient and pollutant concentrations suggests that even a small number of emission sources (total 243 households in the studied hollow) in similar hilly and mountainous rural areas with frequent temperature inversions can significantly increase the levels of eBC and PM, and deteriorate local air quality. During temperature inversions the measured mean eBC and PM2.5 mass concentrations in the whole hollow were as high as 4.5 ± 2.6 µg m–3 and 48.0 ± 27.7 µg m–3, respectively, which is comparable to larger European urban centres.

Highlights

  • 35 One of the biggest emission sources of Particulate Matter (PM) and carbonaceous aerosols is wood burning (Van Der Werf et al, 2010)

  • Actions implemented for reduction of PM emissions in Europe mostly focus on road traffic and cities whereas residential wood combustion and rural areas remain underrepresented with only few studies showing that wood combustion in rural regions can induce PM exposures tantamount or often even higher than those from traffic

  • The PM10 and equivalent black carbon (eBC) mass concentration levels during January and February temperature inversions were lower compared to temperature inversions in December, except from 14 February to 18 February when PM10 mass concentrations reached maximum levels

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Summary

Introduction

35 One of the biggest emission sources of Particulate Matter (PM) and carbonaceous aerosols is wood burning (Van Der Werf et al, 2010). It is a worldwide problem affecting undeveloped and developed countries as well as rural areas and cities (e.g. Bonjour et al, 2013, Bond et al, 2004; Yttri et al, 2005; Caseiro et al, 2009; Fuller et al, 2014; Puxbaum et al, 2007; Stohl et al, 2007; Reis et al, 2019). Fuller et al (2014) state that promotion of biomass as a CO2 neutral fuel, higher taxes in heating diesel and the financial crisis have resulted in the 45 widespread use of wood as fuel in Europe in the last years. Populated relief depressions are vulnerable to air pollution as a combined result of high emissions and unfavourable

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