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Influence of wind direction and speed on the transport of particle-bound PAHs in a roadway environment

2015; Elsevier BV; Volume: 6; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.apr.2015.05.007

1309-1042

Kyung Hwan Kim, Seung‐Bok Lee, Daekwang Woo, Gwi‐Nam Bae,

Atmospheric chemistry and aerosols

The influence of wind direction and speed on the transport of vehicular air pollutants was investigated using a mobile laboratory in an urban area. We considered three spatial scales covering typical transport phenomena observed in urban areas: micro-scale (a few tens of meters), middle-scale (a few hundred meters) and neighborhood-scale (a few kilometers). Particle-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were selected as an indicator of vehicle emissions in the roadway environment. From the micro-scale measurements, we found a significant difference in the concentration of particle-bound PAHs within a small spatial area, on a two-way road, due to the effect of wind direction when the prevailing wind direction was constant. In the middle-scale experiments, an exponential decrease in the concentration of particle-bound PAHs was observed with distance from the intersection in the direction of the prevailing wind, which is consistent with the results of previous studies. The concentration of particle-bound PAHs near the road was ∼10 times higher than that at 200 m away from the road due to the significantly low background concentration, indicating that particle-bound PAHs are a good indicator of vehicle emissions in a roadway environment. From long-distance (∼15 km) traveling measurements made over 14 days, we found that the average concentration of particle-bound PAHs on the road decreased as the prevailing wind speed increased at the neighborhood-scale, when the wind speed was higher than 2.0 m/s. This analysis, over three spatial scales, will be helpful in understanding the effect of wind on air pollution in a roadway environment in urban areas.