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UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
FACULTY OF PHYSICS Guest
2024-11-24 11:20 |
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Conference: Bucharest University Faculty of Physics 2021 Meeting
Section: Atmosphere and Earth Science; Environment Protection
Title:
Variations of the major air pollutants in 2020 in three urban areas in Romania, from ground-based monitoring data
Authors:
George-Bogdan BURGHELEA (1,2), Luminita MARMUREANU (3), Sabina STEFAN (1), Gabriela IORGA (1,4)
*
Affiliation:
(1) University of Bucharest, Faculty of Physics, P.O.Box MG-11, 077125 Bucharest-Magurele, Romania
(2) “Horia Hulubei” National Institute for R&D in Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Reactorului 30, 077125, Magurele, Romania (george.burghelea@nipne.ro)
(3) National Institute for R&D in Optoelectronics INOE 2000, Atomistilor 409, 077125, Magurele, Romania
(4) University of Bucharest, Dept. of Physical Chemistry, Bd. Regina Elisabeta 4-12, 030018 Bucharest, Romania
E-mail
george.burghelea@nipne.ro
Keywords:
air pollutants, SARS-COV2 virus pandemic, urban areas, Romania
Abstract:
The year 2020 was marked by the SARS-COV2 virus pandemic, which was felt all around the globe, including in Romania, by various levels of restrictions of economic and travel activities (the schools will be closed during the lock-down period end temporary closure of restaurants, hotels, cafes, clubs, gradual closure of borders). This has led to a reduction in air pollution, with considerably lower concentrations of air pollutants observed at the country scale. For the present study we selected the time frame of the entire year and we chose three metropolitan areas of the cities of Bucharest (population about 2,155,240 inhabitants), Iasi (population-approximately 300,000 inhabitants) and Brasov ( population-280,000 inhabitants). These cities often face problems of exceeding the air quality limits imposed by European legislation. Bucharest is permanently monitored by 8 static stations (traffic, urban, regional, suburban, industrial), Iasi is monitored by 6 static stations (traffic, urban, industrial, rural, suburban) and Brasov is monitored by 5 static stations (traffic, urban, industrial, suburban, regional). The data are provided by the National Air Quality Monitoring Network (RNMCA) and consisted of daily time series of mass concentrations of the main pollutants, SO2, NO2, O3, CO, PM10, PM2.5. These observations were analyzed from a statistical point of view for both the urban and the suburban area, on three time intervals: before lock-down, during lock-down and after lock-down. These time intervals are associated with implementation of different levels of outdoor socio-economic activities restrictions.
The study shows that during lock-down the pollution levels were lowest for all cities, except for a few days when desert dust intrusions were identified. With the lifting of the lock-down and relaxation of the restrictions these levels began to increase. HYSPLIT and BSC-DREAM models were used to identify the sources of desert dust intrusions.
Acknowledgement:
GBB was supported by the University of Bucharest, PhD research grant. GI thanks the support from EEA-RO-NO-0423 project, contract no 31/2020. NOAA Air Resources Laboratory for HYSPLIT model https://www.ready.noaa.gov and the Barcelona dust forecast center for BSC-DREAM8b and NMBM/BSC-Dust models https://ess.bsc.es/bsc-dust-daily-forecast are acknowledged. Ground-based air pollutant data and meteorology by site were extracted from the public available Romanian National Air Quality Database, www.calitateaer.ro.
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