Abstract
Municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) inside cities have been the major complained sources of odor pollution in China, whereas there is little knowledge about the dose–response relationship to describe the resident complaints caused by odor exposure. This study explored a dose–response relationship between the modelled exposure and the annoyance surveyed by questionnaires. Firstly, the time series of odor concentrations were preliminarily simulated by a dispersion model. Secondly, the perception-related odor exposures were further calculated by combining with the peak to mean factors (constant value 4 (Germany) and 2.3 (Italy)), different time periods of “a whole year”, “summer”, and “nighttime of summer”, and two approaches of odor impact criterion (OIC) (“odor-hour” and “odor concentration”). Thirdly, binomial logistic regression models were used to compare kinds of perception-related odor exposures and odor annoyance by odds ratio, goodness of fit and predictive ability. All perception-related odor exposures were positively associated with odor annoyance. The best goodness of fit was found when using “nighttime of summer” in predicting odor-annoyance responses, which highlights the importance of the time of the day and the time of the year weighting. The best predictive performance for odor perception was determined when the OIC was 4 ou/m3 at the 99th percentile for the odor exposure over time periods of nighttime of summer. The study of dose–response relationship could be useful for the odor management and control of WWTP to maximize the satisfaction of air quality for the residents inside city.
Highlights
Municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) as important facilities for urban management have been constructed fast in recent years in China [1]
We decided to carry out a specific study by determining a dose–response relationship to derive odor impact criteria of the WWTP
Annoyance to 10% or less [35,36], the target value of odor impact criterion (OIC) was calculated as follows: 4 ou/m3 at the 99th percentile for the odor exposure calculated by air dispersion model over the time period of nighttime of summer
Summary
Municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) as important facilities for urban management have been constructed fast in recent years in China [1]. Odors are commonly treated as a kind of nuisance, rather than being considered a direct risk for human health, they affect the quality of life and can even cause physical effects on human health [3]. Most odor assessment regulations all over the world were determined based on the application of dispersion model [11]. Different types of models can be used to simulate the dispersion of odorants into the atmosphere, such as empirical model, Gaussian model, Lagrangian particle model and so on. One of the main advantages of Lagrangian particle model is the ability to treat wind calms, it simulates the dispersion of the emitted odorants with computational particles moving in the wind field and three-dimensional turbulence field. One of the main advantages of Lagrangian particle model is the ability to treat wind calms, it simulates the dispersion of the emitted odorants with computational particles moving in the wind field and three-dimensional turbulence field. [12,13]
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