Overview of the impact of wood burning emissions on carbonaceous aerosols and PM in large parts of the Alpine region

Abstract

During the past years, actions implemented for the reduction of particulate matter emissions have in many European countries focused on road traffic emissions. Much less attention was paid to emissions from domestic wood combustion though the importance of residential wood burning as a source of atmospheric particulate matter (PM) in the Alpine region has been shown in many studies.Here we review the current knowledge about the contribution of wood burning emissions to ambient concentrations of elemental carbon (EC), organic carbon (OC) and PM in the Alpine region. The published results obtained by different approaches (e.g. macro-tracer method, multivariate receptor modeling, chemical mass balance modelling, and so-called Aethalometer modeling) are used in an ambient mono-tracer approach to estimate representative relationships between wood burning tracers (levoglucosan and mannosan) and EC, OC and PM from wood burning. The relationships found are applied to available ambient measurements of levoglucosan and mannosan at Alpine sites for estimation of the contributions of wood burning emissions to average levels of carbonaceous aerosols and PM at these sites. Our results imply that PM from wood burning alone adds often up to 50% and more of the EU daily limit value for PM10 in several alpine valleys during days in winter. Concentrations of carbonaceous aerosols in these valleys are often up to six times higher than in urban or rural sites at the foothills of the Alps.