Air quality assessment studies have either high sampling or analyses costs. In these studies the representation of a city by a single sampling point is still a serious problem, especially in the metropolitans of developing countries, because of the absence of equipments required for sampling at different locations. In this paper, the smoke data measurements of long years are used in the determination of the region for the representation of the city by drawing contours through the Kriging method. Then, the selection of the sampling site in this region is done on the basis of the criteria recommended by the EPA. By this way, the data taken from this sampling point are used for assessing the average city concentrations with lower sampling and analyses costs. This information is valuable for monitoring the air quality and defining environmental policies, although the local distribution and the extreme concentration values over the city are not measurable.

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In this study, particulate matters (TSP, PM 10 , PM 2.5 and PM 10-2.5 ) which are hazardous for environment and human health were investigated in Erzurum urban atmosphere at a sampling point from February 2005 to February 2006. During sampling, two low volume samplers were used and each sampling period lasted approximately 24 h. In order for detection of representative sampling region and point of Erzurum, Kriging method was applied to the black smoke concentration data for winter seasons. Mass concentrations of TSP, PM 10 and PM 2.5 of Erzurum urban atmosphere were measured on average, as 129, 31 and 13 lg/m 3 , respectively, in the sampling period. Meteorological factors, such as temperature, wind speed, wind direction and rainfall were typically found to be affecting PMs, especially PM 2.5 . Air temperature did not seem to be significantly affecting TSP and PM 10 mass concentrations, but had a considerably negative induction on PM 2.5 mass concentrations. However, combustion sourced PM 2.5 was usually diluted from the urban atmosphere by the speed of wind, soil sourced coarse mode particle concentrations (TSP, PM 10 ) were slightly affected by the speed of wind. Rainfall was found to be decreasing concentrations to 48% in all fractions (TSP, PM 10 , PM 10-2.5 , PM 2.5 ) and played an important role on dilution of the atmosphere. Fine mode fraction of PM (PM 2.5 ) showed significant daily and seasonal variations on mass concentrations. On the other hand, coarse mode fractions (TSP, PM 10 and PM 10-2.5 ) revealed more steady variations. It was observed that fine mode fraction variations were affected by the heating in residences during winter seasons.

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