Air pollutant concentrations

About: Air pollutant concentrations is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1652 publications have been published within this topic receiving 36138 citations.

Analysis of aerosol light scattering and absorption measurements in five cities suggests that common air pollutant concentrations scale approximately as the square root of the urban population—consistent with a simple 2D box model. BlAck cARBON AEROSOl cONcENtRAtION IN FIVE cItIES AND ItS ScAlING w ItH cIty P OPUlAtION

Abstract: ollution accumulation during persistent inver- sions has been associated with notoriously high death rates during events such as the London smog and five days in Donora (Ahrens 2009). Yet the current increase of city sizes leads to less obvious but persistent increases in air pollution concentrations and related health impacts.Paul Ehrlich said “Too many cars, too many factories, too much detergent, too much pesticide, multiplying contrails, inadequate sewage treatment plants, too little water, too much carbon dioxide—all can be traced easily to too many people” (Erlich 1971, p. 44). The trend toward urbanization in most countries is aggravating pollution problems (Hodges 1973), suggesting scrutiny of the relation between average local air pollution and city population.While in recent decades, the rate of world popula -tion growth has declined, leading to a prediction of population stabilization in 2050 at about 9 billion people (United Nations 2004), three other factors must be taken into account that affect air pollution: 1) because of the constant technological and eco-nomic growth, the global air pollution problem has been increasing for decades (see, e.g., Friedlingstein et al. 2010), linked to the fast growth of energy consumption, industrial production, electric power production, motor vehicle use, etc.; 2) in many parts of the world, the pollution control techniques have not developed at the same pace [although, for ex-ample, in the United States air emissions decreased in recent years (Environmental Protection Agency 2012)]; and 3) the fraction of global population that lives in large cities has been rising continually in the last decades, further aggravating the air pollution problem in urban areas.

Legislation on emissions of air pollutants and their monitoring

Abstract: This book is concerned with the monitoring of the emissions of air pollutants into the atmosphere from industrial processes. The reason why this topic has become such an important one in many countries is that there is an increasing weight of legislation requiring operators to provide information about gaseous and particulate substances which are released into the environment from the processes they control. The concerns which lie behind the legislation may relate to human health effects of pollutants; potential damage to other aspects of the environment (for example acid rain and ozone generation with their consequent effects, or building decay); amenity issues (for example black smoke or visibility degradation); or global issues such as climate change.