Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT. - An analysis of PM2.5 related air pollution in Ploiesti city. The paper presents an analysis of PM2.5 related air pollution in Ploiesti city, based on datasets with measurements of PM2.5 concentration and some meteorological variables at PH-2 monitoring station, taken from the RNMCA public site (www.calitateaer.ro) and AirBase, and the dataset with in situ measurements of PM2.5 concentration and some meteorological variables acquired through the ROKIDAIR project monitoring campaigns run during the period August 2014 - November 2016, in the Ploiesti city. PM2.5 most correlated meteorological variables are highlighted and the Ploiesti city map with seasonal PM2.5 air pollution distribution is provided. The paper experiments highlight that the PM2.5 concentration evolution analysis must be done taking into consideration the other atmospheric and seasonal parameters, in order to obtain the most appropriate results.
Keywords: air pollution analysis, PM2.5 air pollution episodes, meteorological parameters correlation.
1. INTRODUCTION
Particulate matter (PM) with the aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 pm (i.e. PM2.5) is one of the air pollutants of special concern due to its potential negative effects on human health of sensitive people (such as children and elderly people) (see e.g. a recent study presented in (Iordache et al., 2014), (Prieto-Parra et al., 2017), (Calderón-Garcidueñas et al., 2015), (Zeng et al., 2016), (Silva da Silva et al., 2015)). The analysis of PM2.5 related air pollution is a first step toward a better protection of people living in cities, performed through more informed forecasting and early warning of PM2.5 air pollution episodes. It requires real time monitoring of PM2.5 concentration from most polluted sites of urban areas. The National Monitoring Network of Air Quality (RNMCA) in Romania measures two fractions of PM, PM10 and PM2.5 at certain automated monitoring stations of some cities. For example, in Ploiesti city more RNMCA monitoring stations, from the total of six ones that exist at present, measures PM10, while only one monitoring station, PH-2 (RNMCA), measures PM2.5 and, moreover, due to technical problems it does not provide continuous time series with PM2.5 concentrations.
A possible solution is to develop continuous PM2.5 monitoring networks in the air polluted cities. Under the ROKIDAIR project (www.rokidair.ro/en) it is developed such a monitoring network composed of PM2.5...