How a Steel Plant Affects Air Quality of a Nearby Urban Area: A Study on Metals and PAH Concentrations

Abstract

Taranto (in the Apulia Region of southern Italy) has been included in a list of the most polluted sites of national interest because of its large industrial area that is situated near the urban centre. The impact of this on urban air quality has been evaluated by monitoring PM 2.5 and PM 10 at the industrial site of 'via Orsini' and the urban station of 'via Dante'. At both sites, the temporal distribution and chemical composition of PM, in terms of PAHs and element concentrations, were used to characterize the air quality in the urban area and to deduce the possible and theoretical carcinogenic indices, and thus the impact on human health. High PM concentrations were found to be caused by wind coming from the north (industrial area), and during days when the wind was from this direction the PAH and elemental concentrations (such as iron, manganese and zinc) were the highest of the sampling period. These data confirm the impact of this industrial area, in particular its steel plant activities, on urban air quality in Taranto. In order to determine the source contributions to PM levels at the two investigated sites, Principal Component Analysis was applied to the collected data. Statistical investigations also included PAH and elemental concentrations determined at two other sites in Apulia Region, characterized by traffic and biomass burning sources. These investigations made it possible to distinguish the samples collected in via Dante and via Orsini from those collected at the two other sites, confirming the effects of industrial activities on urban air quality in Taranto.

An Overview: Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Emissions from the Stationary and Mobile Sources and in the Ambient Air

“…Usually principal component analysis and diagnostic ratios are employed to determine the relationship between the composition of PAHs in receptor sites and those from possible sources (Manoli et al, 2004;Kong et al, 2011;Amodio et al, 2013). Other strategies used for source identification include positive matrix factorization and spatial distribution analysis (Larsen and Baker, 2003;Jang et al, 2013).…”

Emission Characteristics and Chemical Compositions of both Filterable and Condensable Fine Particulate from Steel Plants

“…Production of iron and steel is an important source of air pollutants including particulate matter (PM). Previous studies identify iron and steel plants as a major contributor of PM and persistent organic pollutants to air in the vicinity of plants (Amodio et al, 2013;Thuong et al, 2014;Xiao et al, 2014). Atmospheric particulates have potentially adverse impacts on human health through inhalation and respiratory deposition.…”

Distributions-oriented wind forecast verification by a hidden Markov model for multivariate circular–linear data

“…Emissions are mainly composed by suspended particle matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon compounds and benzene (Fisher, 2003) and are associated to known adverse health effects (Brunekreef and Holgate, 2012). In the last years, several PM10 limit value exceedances (according to the 2008 European Air Quality Directive 2008/50/EC) were recorded and these pollution events showed a close connection with intense winds from North and North-West and lack of precipitation, encouraging transportation from the industrial site to the adjacent urban area (Amodio et al, 2013;Fedele et al, 2014). In 2012, the Puglia Local Government adopted a Regional Air Quality Plan prescribing a reduction of industrial emissions by 10% (with respect to the daily mean values) every time such meteorological conditions are forecasted 72 hours in advance.…”