Initiatives to displace petroleum and climate change mitigation have driven a recent increase in space heating with biomass combustion. However, there is ample evidence that biomass combustion emits significant quantities of health damaging pollutants. We investigated the near-source micro-environmental air quality impact of a biomass-fueled combined heat and power system equipped with an electrostatic precipitator (ESP) in Syracuse, NY. Two rooftop sampling stations with PM2.5 and CO2 analyzers were established in such that one could capture the plume while the other one served as the background for comparison depending on the wind direction. Four sonic anemometers were deployed around the stack to quantify spatially and temporally resolved local wind patterns. Fuel-based emission factors were derived based on near-source measurement. The Comprehensive Turbulent Aerosol Dynamics and Gas Chemistry (CTAG) model was then applied to simulate the spatial variations of primary PM2.5 without ESP. Our analysis shows that the absence of ESP could lead to an almost 7 times increase in near-source primary PM2.5 concentrations with a maximum concentration above 100 μg m−3 at the building rooftop. The above-ground “hotspots” would pose potential health risks to building occupants since particles could penetrate indoors via infiltration, natural ventilation, and fresh air intakes on the rooftop of multiple buildings. Our results demonstrated the importance of emission control for biomass combustion systems in urban area, and the need to take above-ground pollutant “hotspots” into account when permitting distributed generation. The effects of ambient wind speed and stack temperature, the suitability of airport meteorological data on micro-environmental air quality were explored, and the implications on mitigating near-source air pollution were discussed.

The spatiotemporal variability of ambient volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in Tehran, Iran, is not well understood. Here we present the design, methods, and results of the Tehran Study of Exposure Prediction for Environmental Health Research (Tehran SEPEHR) on ambient concentrations of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, p-xylene, m-xylene, and o-xylene (BTEX). To date, this is the largest study of its kind in a low- and middle-income country and one of the largest globally. We measured BTEX concentrations at five reference sites and 174 distributed sites identified by a cluster analysis method. Samples were taken over 25 2-weeks at five reference sites (to be used for temporal adjustments) and over three 2-week campaigns in summer, winter, and spring at 174 distributed sites. The annual median (25th–75th percentile) for benzene, the most carcinogenic of the BTEX species, was 7.8 (6.3–9.9) μg/m3, and was higher than the national and European Union air quality standard of 5 μg/m3 at approximately 90% of the measured sites. The estimated annual mean concentrations of BTEX were spatially highly correlated for all pollutants (Spearman rank coefficient 0.81–0.98). In general, concentrations and spatial variability were highest during the summer months, most likely due to fuel evaporation in hot weather. The annual median of benzene and total BTEX across the 35 sites in the Tehran regulatory monitoring network (7.7 and 56.8 μg/m3, respectively) did a reasonable job of approximating the 144 city-wide sites (7.9 and 58.7 μg/m3, respectively). The annual median concentrations of benzene and total BTEX within 300 m of gas stations were 9.1 and 67.3 μg/m3, respectively, and were higher than sites outside this buffer. We further found that airport did not affect annual BTEX concentrations of sites within 1 km. Overall, the observed ambient concentrations of toxic VOCs are a public health concern in Tehran.

The present study was carried out in Nepal, a landlocked country located between world's two most populous countries i.e. India and China. In this study, the occurrence, profiles, spatial distributions and fate of eight organophosphate ester flame retardants (OPFRs) were investigated in indoor air and house dust. Overall, the concentrations of ∑OPFR were in the range of 153–12100 ng/g (median732 ng/g) and 0.32–64 ng/m3 (median 5.2 ng/m3) in house dust and indoor air, respectively. The sources of high OPFR in the indoor environment could be from locally used wide variety of consumer products and building materials in Nepalese houses. Significantly, high concentration of tri-cresyl phosphate (TMPP) was found both in air and dust, while tri (2-ethylhexyl) phosphate (TEHP) had the highest concentration in air samples. It might be due to fact that the high concentrations of TMPP are related to intense traffic and/or nearby airports. On the other hand, significantly high concentration of TEHP could be due to anthropogenic activities. Only TEHP showed positive correlation between indoor air and house dust (Rho = 0.517, p < 0.01), while rest of compounds were either less correlated or not correlated at all. The estimated human exposure to ∑OPFR via different pathway of intake suggested dermal absorption via indoor dust as major pathway of human exposure to both children and adult population. However, other pathways of OPFR intake such as dietary or dermal absorption via soil may still be significant in case of Nepal.

The Arctic is considered a pristine environment, where pollution mainly originates from global sources. The present study examines particle number concentrations (PNCs) and the main sources of airborne ultrafine particles (UFPs, d < 100 nm) in the town Sisimiut and two nearby settlements, Sarfannguit and Itilleq, in West Greenland. Measurements were carried out during three weeks in April and May 2016. Air temperatures during the measurements ranged from −4.4 to +8.7 °C. A portable condensation particle counter (P-Trak) was used for the measurements. Results showed that the lowest concentrations were found during days with high wind speeds, with the lowest PNC average of 72 ± 11 cm−3 (n = 9) (12 m/s). Background concentrations were usually low compared to more densely populated countries, with a couple of exceptions, where there was no clear cause for elevated PNCs in a background area East of Sisimiut. Measured PNCs in the flue gas in the waste incineration plant in Sisimiut showed up to 334,976 cm−3 and are expected to be higher in the gas after it is released through the chimney. Average PNCs up to 77,009 ± 43,880 cm−3 (n = 26) were measured by a road located by the harbor in Sisimiut, while subsequent measurements at the same location showed much lower PNCs. The presence of heavy machinery elevated PNCs highly during two measurement events, giving PNCs up to 270,993 cm−3 but dropping to 1180 cm−3 10 min later, after the vehicle had passed by. A measurement event in Sisimiut Airport while an aircraft landed and departed showed an average PNC of 44,741 ± 85,094 cm−3 (n = 21). Two 24-h measurements resulted in average PNCs of 2960 ± 5704 cm−3 and 3935 ± 10,016 cm−3 respectively.

It seems obvious that the noise levels in local communities surrounding airports influences the level of acceptance of an airport. What is not so evident is the effect of non-acoustic factors that increase the societal rejection, like the lack of sensitivity and empathy from the authorities and airport managers, the lack of trust in them, the lack of information and transparency, the perception of being excluded from the decision making and so on. Complementary to the traditional strategies based on the reduction of noise exposure, a community engagement and involvement approach brings new possibilities to manage noise around airports, trying to exploit the non-acoustic factors that have negatively affected the community response. Building trust among the stakeholders is a key factor in this strategy, and it must be based on a long-term, honest, and transparent two-way communication. In the last decade, the huge growth of the information and communication technologies has opened new opportunities that the aviation organizations and stakeholders are starting to explore in depth trying to reduce the degree of rejection of the airport, which may compromise the utilization of existing and future infrastructure. In this review, we make a short introduction on aircraft noise health effects, to focus annoyance and the influence that non-acoustic factors on it. Then, we describe the basis of community engagement as a parallel approach to mitigate noise issues around airports, setting the focus on the noise metrics and the involvement techniques that must be implemented to engage the community.

Dust is an environmental, geotechnical, health, and economical hazard. Fugitive dust emanating along transportation systems such as roads, railways, and airports especially can have significant impacts on health, safety, material loss, cost of maintenance, and interfere with the facilities. Quantitative studies on the effectiveness of the proper dust palliatives and their environmental impact have been studied with a number of biological and chemical methods. The objective of this study was to establish a method for using the microbial Induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP) approach to reduce the percent of mass loss against erosive force of wind regarding to the concentration and characteristics of aggregate used, climate, and traffic amounts. The results of this study showed that the required precipitation for dust control of sand by 70% is less than 15 g CaCO₃/m² between sand grains in bio-treated sand. The wind tunnel test results of this study also indicate that the effectiveness of the bio-treatment method for dust control depends on many variables, such as the percent of precipitated calcium carbonate and tensile strength.

Air traffic represents an important way of social mobility in the world, and many ongoing discussions are related to the impacts that air transportation has on local air quality. In this study, moss Sphagnum girgensohnii was used for the first time in the assessment of trace element content at the international airport. The moss bags were exposed during the summer of 2013 at four sampling sites at the airport ‘Nikola Tesla’ (Belgrade, Serbia): runway (two), auxiliary runway and parking lot. According to the relative accumulation factor (RAF) and the limit of quantification of the moss bag technique (LOQT), the most abundant elements in the samples were Zn, Na, Cr, V, Cu and Fe. A comparison between the element concentrations at the airport and the corresponding values in different land use classes (urban central, suburban, industrial and green zones) across the city of Belgrade did not point out that the air traffic and associated activities significantly contribute to the trace element air pollution. This study emphasised an easy operational and robust (bio)monitoring, using moss bags as a suitable method for assessment of air quality within various microenvironments with restriction in positioning referent instrumental devices.

Psychotropic substances (PSs) are known to affect air and waters, while scarce attention has been paid to their occurrence in settled dusts although they can reach important concentrations there; moreover, no procedures have been developed for this specific purpose. In this study, a list of PSs (i.e., nicotine, cotinine, caffeine, cocaine, cannabinol, Δ⁹-tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiol, amphetamine, heroin, and methadone) were characterized in dusts from Rome and Fiumicino international airport, Italy, and from Ouargla city, Algeria. The analytical procedure, based on ultra-sonic bath extraction, silica column chromatography, and GC-MSD analysis, provided good recovery, uncertainty, sensitivity, and lack of interferences for all substances except amphetamine. In NIST SRM-2585 house dust, nicotine, cotinine, caffeine, cocaine, and cannabinol accounted for ~5.95, 0.87, 4.17, 7.0, and 2.2 μg/g, respectively; on the other hand, methadone, tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiol, and heroin (all <0.025 μg/g) were below the detection limit of the method. Two sites at the Fiumicino airport were affected by different loads of PSs (e.g., 0.76 and 2.80 ng/m² of cocaine). In Ouargla, where dust was collected in a primary school and a dwelling, nicotine ranged from ~60 ± 50 to ~86 ± 89 ng/m², cocaine was absent, and cannabinoids (0.35 ± 0.43 ng/m² as total) were found only in the home. In Rome, nicotine, caffeine, cocaine, and cannabinol reached ca. 700, 1470, 0.82, and 2.4 ng/m², respectively, in a smokers’ home, but they were ca. 1300, 25,000, 670, and 1700 ng/m² in a non-smoker home. In conclusion, all dusts revealed the presence of illicit PSs. Further studies are necessary to understand the links between the PS amounts in airborne particulates and in dusts, as well as the PS origin and fate in interiors.

Flows and transport of sediment and associated chemical constituents within the lower reaches of the Athabasca River between Fort McMurray and Embarrass Airport are investigated using a two-dimensional (2D) numerical model called Environmental Fluid Dynamics Code (EFDC). The river reach is characterized by complex geometry, including vegetated islands, alternating sand bars and an unpredictable thalweg. The models were setup and validated using available observed data in the region before using them to estimate the levels of cohesive sediment and a select set of chemical constituents, consisting of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and metals, within the river system. Different flow scenarios were considered, and the results show that a large proportion of the cohesive sediment that gets deposited within the study domain originates from the main stem upstream inflow boundary, although Ells River may also contribute substantially during peak flow events. The floodplain, back channels and islands in the river system are found to be the major areas of concern for deposition of sediment and associated chemical constituents. Adsorbed chemical constituents also tend to be greater in the main channel water column, which has higher levels of total suspended sediments, compared to in the flood plain. Moreover, the levels of chemical constituents leaving the river system are found to depend very much on the corresponding river bed concentration levels, resulting in higher outflows with increases in their concentration in the bed sediment.