Gaseous and PM10-Bound Pollutants Monitored in Three Sites with Differing Environmental Conditions in the Venice Area (Italy)

Abstract

Understanding and controlling air pollution in highly populated areas is very important, although interpreting the levels of gaseous pollutants and airborne particulate matter is complicated by dominant natural and anthropogenic emissions, micrometeorological processes, and chemical reactions which take place directly in the atmosphere. For this reason, it is very difficult to relate the characteristics of air pollution to one or more specific emission sources. The aim of this paper is to detect associations among elements and organic compounds emitted from specific sources by means of chemical analyses, statistical processing of data, seasonal evolution study, and geochemical considerations to trace their origin. A detailed characterization of air quality during the period September 2000-September 2001 was carried out in three locations of the Venice region: A heavy traffic urban site, a public park, and the island centre of the city of Venice. Twenty-eight inorganic elements, four polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, CO and benzene were quantified and processed by a statistical procedure based on factor analysis considering variations on a seasonal basis. Results show the presence of associations between elements and compounds with the same behaviour in all sampling points. This indicates that several pollutants originate from a common source, and are then "diluted" throughout the study area, maintaining the imprint of their origin. Pt, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, CO and benzene originating from the exhaust gas of vehicles are all linked in the traffic factor, whereas Cd is associated with Se, having a common source in industrial processes.

GC-MS analyses and chemometric processing to discriminate the local and long-distance sources of PAHs associated to atmospheric PM2.5

“…Generally, the obtained analytical data are consistent with the findings of previous studies on PM 2.5 and PM 10 in the area (Rampazzo et al 2008a). In addition, the results are also in agreement with data of BaP in PM10 provided by the local Environmental Protection Agency (ARPAV) network.…”

“…Lower levels in group 1 are principally due to the enhanced changing of air masses and the raised atmospheric dispersion and air cleaning. Differently, slow winds in group 3 may prevent the atmospheric dispersion and cause locally emitted pollutants to be retained (Rampazzo et al 2008a;Masiol et al 2010).…”

Seasonal trends and spatial variations of PM10-bounded polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Veneto Region, Northeast Italy

“…This worrying scenario is largely confirmed by experimental data evidencing that the BaP European air quality target value is breached in many locations of Veneto (Rampazzo et al, 2008;ARPAV, 2010ARPAV, , 2011ARPAV, , 2012. Since BaP is reported frequently exceeding the target values in the largest cities (ARPAV, 2012) with the subsequent increasing risk for living people, the Veneto Region administration is urged to develop and implement control and mitigation strategies.…”

A procedure to assess local and long-range transport contributions to PM2.5 and secondary inorganic aerosol

“…The emissive scenario is common to other continental districts of Po Valley and includes: (i) an extended urban area, Mestre, with about 270,000 inhabitants; (ii) an extended industrial zone, Porto Marghera ( $ 12 km 2 ), with chemical and metallurgical works, oil-refineries, incineration and thermoelectric power plants burning coal, gas and refuse derived fuel; (iii) several heavy traffic city roads, a highway and a causeway. The peculiarity of this area is the city center of Venice in the middle of a $ 550 km 2 -wide lagoon, almost free from automotive traffic, but affected by: (i) artistic glass factories emissions in the island of Murano; (ii) exhausts from public, commercial and tourist shipping and (iii) sea-spray from the Adriatic Sea and the Lagoon (Rampazzo et al, 2008a(Rampazzo et al, , 2008bStortini et al, 2009;Rossini et al, 2010;Masiol et al, 2010). Fig.…”

“…The concentrations and formation mechanisms of PM 2.5 and SIA were already studied in some sites of Po Valley such as San Pietro Capofiume (Boulogne), Milan, Venice Lagoon (see e.g., Hamed et al, 2007;Sogacheva et al, 2007;Lonati et al, 2008;Prodi et al, 2009), but relatively scarce data are available for the Eastern part of the Po plain. In particular only few studies reported on air quality in the Venice-Mestre area (Rampazzo et al, 2008a(Rampazzo et al, , 2008bStortini et al, 2009;Masiol et al, 2010) and mainly discussed element characterization, source identification and apportionment.…”