Showing papers on "Air quality index published in 1996"

European Indoor Air Quality Audit Project in 56 Office Buildings

Abstract: A European project started at the end of 1992, in which, in addition to current methods, trained sensory panels were used to investigate office buildings all over Europe. The main aim of this EC-Audit was to develop assessment procedures and guid-ance on ventilation and source control, to help optimize energy use in buildings while assuring good indoor air quality. In each of nine countries, six or more office buildings were select-ed. Measurements were performed at five selected locations in each building. The buildings were studied while normally occu-pied and ventilated to identify the pollution sources in the spaces and to quantify the total pollution load caused by the occupants and their activities, as well as the ventilation systems. The investi-gation included physical and chemical measurements, assessment of the perceived air quality in the spaces by a trained sensory pan-el, and measurement of the outdoor air supply to the spaces. A questionnaire for evaluating retrospective and immediate symp-toms and perceptions was given to the occupants of the buildings. The building characteristics were described by use of a check-list. The annual energy consumption of the buildings and the weather conditions were registered. This paper presents results and conclusions of the audit in 56 buildings in Europe. However, the analysis and discussions of the results are a summary of the work done, and are focused mainly on comparison between sensory assessments and the other meas-urements performed. Furthermore, this paper brings the results of the study based on a two-factor analysis. A paper dealing with results on a multifacto-rial analysis is in preparation.

Expanding metropolitan highways: implications for air quality and energy use

Abstract: To meet the regulatory requirements of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, metropolitan planning organizations, state officials, legislators, and courts with oversight responsibilities are currently being asked to make judgments about the likely effects of highway capacity additions on air quality on the basis of their interpretation of the best available information. The Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board initiated an 18-month study, the results of which are summarized in TRB Special Report 245, "Expanding Metropolitan Highways--Implications for Air Quality and Energy Use", to evaluate the scientific evidence about the impacts of highway capacity additions on traffic flow characteristics, travel demand, land use, vehicle emissions, air quality, and energy use in metropolitan areas. The TRB study does not resolve the broader debate--which involves value judgments about the relative importance of mobility, economic growth, environmental protection, and energy conservation--but it does review the state of knowledge and the reliability of forecasting tools available to planning agencies to predict the effects of expanding highway capacity on air quality and energy use. This article comments on the findings of the TRB study and presents the study's concluding observations.

Review of the national ambient air quality standards for particulate matter: Policy assessment of scientific and technical information. OAQPS staff paper. Final report

Abstract: This staff evaluates and interprets the updated scientific and technical information that EPA staff believes is most relevant to the review of primary and secondary national ambient air quality standards for particulate matter (PM). This assessment is intended to bridge the gap between the scientific review in the 1996 criteria document and the judgements required of the Administrator in setting ambient air quality standards for PM.

Australian / New Zealand standards

Abstract: The Clean Air Society is represented on a number of Standards Association of Australia (Standards Australia) committees dealing with air quality measurement:

Relationships Between Ventilation and Indoor Air Quality: A Review

Abstract: Adjustment of ventilation rates in buildings is widely practised, both to provide good air quality on a proactive basis and to mitigate air quality problems associated with occupant complaints. However, both cross-sectional and experimental epidemiological studies have reported mixed results and have for the most part failed to establish definitive relationships between ventilation rates and symptom prevalence or dissatisfaction with air quality. The difficulties involved in establishing such relationships may be due to a variety of confounding factors which include limitations in study design and interaction effects; difficulties in controlling ventilation rates in experimental studies; inadequate mixing of supply air in occupied spaces; high source strengths for some contaminants; dynamic interactions between sources and ventilation rates that result in increased contaminant emissions; contaminant dose-response sensory effects which are log-linear; potential contaminant generation within ventilation systems themselves; and multifactorial genesis of sick building symptoms. There is limited evidence to suggest that ventilation rate increases up to 10 L/s person may be effective in reducing symptom prevalence and occupant dissatisfaction with air quality and that higher ventilation rates are not effective. Because of complex relationships between ventilation rates, contaminant levels, and building-related health complaints/dissatisfaction with air quality, the use of ventilation as a mitigation measure for air quality problems should be tempered with an understanding of factors which may limit its effectiveness.

NOx EMISSIONS FROM SOIL: Implications for Air Quality Modeling in Agricultural Regions

Abstract: ▪ Abstract Attaining the ambient standard for tropospheric ozone has been difficult in many metropolitan areas, despite efforts to reduce anthropogenic sources of the ozone precursors, including the nitrogen oxides (NOx). Until recently, NOx emissions from biogenic sources in soils were not considered in simulations of air quality and emissions reductions scenarios, yet they may be significant, especially in agricultural regions where nitrogen fertilizers are applied. Soil NOx is produced primarily by microbial processes; production and emissions from soils are controlled by a suite of environmental variables, including inorganic nitrogen availability, water-filled pore space, and soil temperature. Agricultural management practices such as fertilization and irrigation affect these environmental variables and thus have the potential to dramatically alter soil NOx emissions. Although current models incorporate some of these variables, accurate regional estimation of soil NOx emissions requires modeling appr...

Indoor Air and Human Health

Abstract: This book provides information about indoor air pollution in homes, apartment buildings, office buildings, hospitals and other public buildings. The book examines each pollutant from the viewpoints of: measurement and source characterization; habitat studies; health effects; risk analysis; and future needs.

The value of health benefits from ambient air quality improvements in Central and Eastern Europe: An exercise in benefits transfer

Abstract: This study is an initial effort to estimate one important category of benefits of environmental improvements in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), those related to the effects of air pollution on human health. Our estimates are derived from data on ambient air quality in selected CEE locations, together with a model that links these ambient conditions to physical impacts on health and attaches economic values (in dollar terms) to these impacts. Given data limitations, our focus here is on three pollutants: particulates (PM), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and lead (Pb). Our data set includes ambient concentrations for these pollutants in four CEE countries: Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine. Given the ambient data, dose-response functions taken from the clinical and epidemiological literature in the U.S., Canada, and Western Europe are used to generate estimates of the change in physical effects. These effects then are given an economic value by applying two approaches for scaling unit valuation figures applicable to the U.S. A Monte Carlo model is constructed to propagate the uncertainties of the dose-response functions and unit values to obtain confidence intervals on the total benefits from pollutant reductions in each country. We examine scenarios where the CEE countries improve ambient conditions for the pollutants in question to meet European Community (EC) standards and then compare these scenarios to ones involving uniform percentage ambient reductions across locations in each country.

The Social Cost of the Health Effects of Motor-Vehicle Air Pollution

Abstract: Motor vehicles and their related emission sources, such as petroleum refineries, emit many different kinds of air pollutants, which affect human health in a variety of ways. These health effects create a large economic cost to society. In this report, we estimate the social cost of many of the health effects of motor-vehicle air pollution. The relationship between changes in emissions related to motor-vehicle use and changes in health welfare (measured in dollars) can be modeled in three steps: 1) relate changes in emissions to changes in air quality; 2) relate changes in air quality to changes in physical health effects; and 3) relate changes in physical health effects to changes in economic welfare. We have made a detailed model of this sort to estimate the cost of the health effects of motor-vehicle air pollution1. We estimate the human-health cost of motor-vehicle air pollution in the entire U.S., in urban areas of the U.S., in rural areas of the U.S., and in 11 major metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs): Boston, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, St. Lotus, Spokane, and Washington D.C. We consider six types of motor vehicles: light-duty gasoline and diesel vehicles, light-duty gasoline and diesel trucks, and heavy-duty gasoline and diesel trucks. We estimate the number and type of health effects, and the monetized value of these effects, including total dollar costs, dollar costs per vehicle-mile of travel, and dollar costs per kg of pollutant emitted. Finally, we include an analysis of the three main sources of the costs: direct emissions from motor vehicles, emissions of road-dust particulate matter, and upstream emissions from gasoline stations, refineries, vehicle manufacturing, and so on.

Smog Alert: Managing Urban Air Quality

Abstract: The world's cities are choking on pollution from traffic and industry. With the health of over 1.6 billion people under threat, poor urban air quality is fast becoming one of them most pressing environmental problems of our times. Smog Alert examines the causes and scale of urban air pollution, identifying who is most at risk, and what particular health risks various pollutants pose. It then considers an effective framework for air quality management, so that national and city authorities can consider what pollution control polices and measures are needed to deliver healthy urban air quality, and to sustain it in the future. Having established the background and framework, the book examines the existing and alternative measures to monitor and combat the declining air quality. It assesses smog alert systems the potential for cleaner car and fuel technology sustainable traffic management and public transport policies and methods of controlling both industrial and residential emissions. Detailed case studies illustrate the severity and breadth of the problem - from the first serious photochemical smogs in Los Angeles to the dire warning offered by Mexico City and from London (the city which coined the word 'smog') to Athens' pollution phenomenon, the 'nefos'. Drawing on the lessons learned from past experience, Smog Alert provides a comprehensive analysis of how health air quality may yet be achieved in the world's cities.

Air Quality Model Evaluation Data for Organics. 1. Bulk Chemical Composition and Gas/Particle Distribution Factors

Abstract: During the period of September 8−9, 1993, the South Coast Air Basin that surrounds Los Angeles experienced the worst photochemical smog episode in recent years; ozone concentrations exceeded 0.29 ppm 1-h average, and NO_2 concentrations peaked at 0.21 ppm 1-h average. Field measurements were conducted at a five-station air monitoring network to obtain comprehensive data on the identity and concentration of the individual organic compounds present in both the gas and particle phases during that episode. The data will also serve to support future tests of air quality models designed to study organic air pollutant transport and reaction. Air samples taken in stainless steel canisters were analyzed for 141 volatile organic compounds by GC/ECD, GC/FID, and GC/MS; PAN and PPN were measured by GC/ECD; particulate organics collected by filtration were analyzed for total organics and elemental carbon by thermal evolution and combustion and for individual organic compounds by GC/MS; semivolatile organics were analyzed by GC/MS after collection on polyurethane foam cartridges. The present paper describes this experiment and presents the concentrations of major organic compound classes and their relationship to the inorganic pollutants present. At the farthest downwind site studied (Claremont), extensive modification of primary pollutants by atmospheric chemical reactions was evident during the peak photochemical smog period: vapor-phase olefins and aromatics were depleted, the majority of the nitrogen-containing pollutants were present as organic plus inorganic nitrates, the fraction of organics in the particle phase rose to 12.5% (versus 2.6−5.4% at the coast), one fourth of the pollutant-derived nitrogen was in the particle phase, and nearly all of the Cl- had been removed from the particle phase. Of the total nitrate measured at Claremont, on the average only 33.6% was present as organic nitrates, which is a much lower ratio of organic nitrate to total nitrate than has been seen in previous years.

Lichens as Bioindicators of Geothermal Air Pollution in Central Italy

Abstract: The suitability of lichens as bioindicators of geothermal air pollution was evaluated in central Italy. Fifty-one sites were sampled in the Travale-Radicondoli geothermal field, an area of about 15 km{sup 2}. Lichens on 1-5 trees per station were sampled, using 30 x 50 cm grids on tree boles, where lichens were most dense. Index of Atmospheric Purity (IAP) was calculated as the sum of the frequencies of all lichen species present at the station. Using automatic mapping programs, the area was divided into four air quality zones and the lowest IAP values were found within about 500 m of geothermal power plants. No direct measurements of air pollution are available for the whole study area, however, other studies show that air pollution levels (mercury, boron) fall with distance from a geothermal source. Also no substrate parameter (height, circumference, bark pH, and buffer capacity of the trees) discriminates between IAP zones. This suggests that air pollution arising from geothermal emissions is responsible for the zonation shown, with values for species richness and IAP rising with distance from geothermal installations. It is concluded that lichens are reliable bioindicators of geothermal pollution. 64 refs., 1 fig., 3 tabs.

Exposure-response functions for health effects of air pollutants based on epidemiological findings

Abstract: Quantitative knowledge about health damage due to air pollution is an important element in analyses of cost-effective abatement strategies, and is also essential for setting Air Quality Standards. Epidemiological studies, in spite of the numerous problems connected to them, provide a reasonable basis for exposure-response functions in this context. On the basis of a literature review, exposure-response functions that relate ambient air pollutant concentrations to the frequency of various health effects are recommended in this paper. The following end-points were examined: Acute and chronic respiratory symptoms in children and adults, crude mortality, and lung cancer incidence. The effects are attributed to one indicator component, which in most cases is particles. A calculation procedure is suggested which makes it possible to estimate excess annual symptom-days for short-term effects using the annual average concentration.

Extreme value analysis of Munich air pollution data

Abstract: We present three different approaches to modelling extreme values of daily air pollution data. We fitted a generalized extreme value distribution to the monthly maxima of daily concentration measures. For the exceedances of a high threshold depending on the data, the parameters of the generalized Pareto distribution were estimated. Accounting for autocorrelation, clusters of exceedances were used. To obtain information about the relationship of the exceedance of the air quality standard and possible predictors we applied logistic regression. Results and their interpretation are given for daily average concentrations of ozone and nitrogen dioxide at two monitoring sites within the city of Munich.