Spatio-temporal prediction of atmospheric benzene (Part I)

• Tipo: Artigo em Revista Científica Internacional
• Data: 2012

Autores

fontes, t (Autor) FEUP; barros, n (Autor) Outra

Revista

Título: Environmental Monitoring and Assessment

Vol. 184

Páginas: 893-902

ISSN: 0167-6369

Editora: Springer Nature

Indexação

ISI Web of Knowledge - 1 Citação

Scopus - 1 Citação

Classificação Científica

FOS: Ciências exactas e naturais > Ciências da terra e ciências do ambiente

Outras Informações

ID Authenticus: P-002-HCM

DOI: 10.1007/s10661-011-2007-9

Abstract (EN): Benzene is a carcinogenic and genotoxic pollutant which mainly affects the people health through the inhalation. Nevertheless, this pollutant is not frequently measured by air-quality networks. To solve this problem, some models have been published to estimate benzene concentrations in the atmosphere. However, the lack of measures makes difficult the application of complex models in order to get a detailed spatio-temporal analysis, namely in urban areas. In this work was developed a simple semi-empirical model to predict benzene concentrations based on the ratio of benzene and carbon monoxide concentrations in order to predict the concentrations of this pollutant in large areas and periods with lack of benzene measurements but with higher impact in the human health. The model was applied to an urban area, the Metropolitan Area of Oporto, for a period of 12 years (1995-2006). Monthly correlations between benzene and carbon monoxide concentrations at Custias air-quality station are significant (p = 0.01) and higher in winter (r (s) > 0.7) than in summer (0.3 > r (s) > 0.7). Estimate of the monthly ratio of the concentration of these two pollutants range between 199 and 305. The methodology validation shows good results (r (s) = 0.81) which allow, assuming the availability of carbon monoxide data, the use of this tool for areas with low benzene recorded data. The application of this methodology in the study area shows an annual average trend decrease of benzene concentrations during the study period, which may be linked to a general trend decrease of benzene emissions in European urban areas, including the study domain.

Idioma: Inglês

Tipo (Avaliação Docente): Científica

Nº de páginas: 10