Abstract
Dust emissions from unpaved roads are one of the main pollutants affecting air quality around the world. As part of initial air quality studies in Tuxtla Gutiérrez (TGZ), Chiapas, Mexico, urban aeolian emission events from unpaved roads and simple meteorological inputs were measured in February 2014 at two different sites located within the city to characterize emissions for representative road conditions and to produce Industrial Source Complex (ISC3) model inputs. Emissions of particulate matter of aerodynamic diameter less than 10 µm (PM10) were determined for eight wind erosion events. PM10 concentrations were measured downwind from sites using a Minivol sampler during February and March 2014. Three high PM10 concentration scenarios, associated with unstable conditions generated by cold fronts (CF) were selected to simulate dust plume dispersion to identify impacted areas. Results show that unpaved roads represent a potential source of dust that affect air quality of urban regions; in this study generating emissions ≥ 1.92 × 10−3 g·m−2·s−1 when winds ≥6 m·s−1 were present. Air pollution events that exceed the Mexico national standard for 24-h average PM10 concentration (≥75 µg·m−3) were observed, impacting different areas in the city, representing a risk to human health. This demonstrates the influence of CF over southern Mexico, generating high PM10 concentrations in urban regions.
Highlights
Mineral dust emissions are one of the main pollution sources that affect air quality around the world [1] and have important implications on human health and visibility [2,3,4,5,6,7]
In order to identify the areas impacted by dust particles during days presenting high PM10 concentrations, meteorological and emission input files were created from the field campaign for the ISC3 model execution
The highest PM10 concentration downwind from Lajas Maciel was observed during 27 February 2014 (1307 μg·m−3 ) while high concentrations downwind from Plan de Ayala were observed during 8 March 2014 (114 μg·m−3 ) and 13 March 2014 (63 μg·m−3 ) when wind speeds and wind direction recorded by Vantage Pro2 (VP2) allowed the particulate transport to monitoring site
Summary
Mineral dust emissions are one of the main pollution sources that affect air quality around the world [1] and have important implications on human health and visibility [2,3,4,5,6,7]. Etyemezian et al [12] used the ISC3 model to simulate dust plumes generated from unpaved roads as a result of mechanical action of vehicle movements under different atmospheric stability and soil surface conditions. They found that the model could approximate the shape of a dust plume, variations in PM10 concentrations could not be reproduced as the measured data indicated. Unpaved roads are long areas prone to wind erosion and can be considered as potential sources of dust particles affecting urban air quality and visibility during the dry season, representing an environmental risk for human health. This study was implemented with two main objectives: (1) to quantify dust emissions from unpaved roads; and
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