19th International Conference on

Harmonisation within Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling for Regulatory Purposes

3-6 June 2019, Bruges, Belgium
______________________________________________________________________

THE ASSESSMENT OF THE PMS CONCENTRATION IN THE BUCHAREST AMBIENT AIR

– A CASE STUDY

George Suciu1, Mihaela Balanescu1, Cristina Balaceanu1 Adrian Pasat 1, Carmen Nadrag1 and Andrei
Birdici1
1
Beia Consult International, Bucharest, Romania

Abstract: Mathematical models are essential tools for most air pollution studies. The air quality models are the
means whereby pollutant emissions can be correlated to atmospheric pollutant concentrations. The uncertainties in
the assessment of air quality are linked to both the quality of measured values of pollutant concentrations using the
different type of devices and the input data for the model.
In recent years, Bucharest has seen a rapid increase of cars and associated traffic congestion. Furthermore, the lack of
bypasses surrounding Bucharest is anticipated to add to existing air pollution impacts.
The aim of this paper is to analyse the levels of pollution in a residential area, Centrul Stelutelor, a Recovery Centre,
where monitoring stations are installed to measure the PMs and meteorological parameters. The Libelium PMs
monitoring station include sensors based on laser technology and the timestamp for measuring was set-up at 15 min.
Besides, an Adcon meteo station provided the necessary local meteorological parameters. The improved estimation of
air quality consists in combining the measurements results with the results obtained by modelling the emissions from
car traffic with the atmospheric dispersion model. The model used in this use case was AERMOD View 9.5.
The distribution in space and time of the PMs particle (PM10, PM2.5) concentrations were studied. The results
indicate a high correlation between the measured and modelled PMs concentration.

Key words: air quality, PMs, modelling, pollution.

INTRODUCTION

Particle matters are a mixture of small particles and liquid droplets. The primary PM precursors are SOx,
NOx, NH3, and NMVOC (EEA Report, no. 13/2017). In general, PMs can cause or aggravate
cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, heart attacks and cardiac arrhythmias (Franchini, et. all, 2009).
Some particles in suspension, e.g., from the exhaust of diesel engines, can cause lung cancer (Hacon, et.
All, 2007). An important problem is particles with aerodynamic diameter less than 10 microns, which are
small and could penetrate the thoracic region of the respiratory system causing inflammation and
intoxication (Xu and Li, 2008).
PM2.5 has a higher risk factor for human health than PM10 (https://www.who.int/airpollution/en/). Long-
term exposure to PM2.5 pollution is associated with a long-term increase in cardiopulmonary mortality
risk.
Categories particularly affected by PM pollution are people with cardiovascular and respiratory diseases,
children, the elderly and asthmatics. For example, exposure to PM influences the development of lungs in
children, due to respiratory disturbances, chronic reduction in lung growth, and long-term lung function
deficiency (Vijay, et. all, 2017). Children less than 15 years of age breathe faster than adults, inhale more
air, tend to breathe more in the mouth, virtually bypassing the natural nose filter and consequently inhale
more pollutants. Because their lungs are not developed, and the lung tissue that forms in childhood is
more sensitive, they are more vulnerable (Yu, et all, 2017). Particle pollution worsens the symptoms of
asthma, coughing, chest pain and breathing difficulties. Long-term exposure to a low concentration of
suspended powders can cause cancer and premature death.
Pollution by PMs pollution sources are from natural phenomena (i.e. volcanic eruptions, pollen dispersion
and carry-over of particles from soil surface by wind velocity) and from anthropogenic sources (i.e.
production processes, construction sites, and industrial landfills).
The aim of this paper is to analyse the levels of pollution in a residential area, Centrul Stelutelor, a
Recovery Centre, where monitoring stations are installed to measure the PMs and meteorological
parameters. The improved estimation of air quality consists in combining the measurements results with
the results obtained by modelling the emissions from traffic using AERMOD VIEW 9.5 dispersion
model.
The paper is structured as follows: Area Characteristics, Sensors Deployment and Data Acquisition,
Experimental Data, Results and Conclusions.

AREA CHARACTERISTICS

Bucharest lies in the south-eastern part of Romania, halfway between the Danube River and the Southern
Carpathian Mountains on the banks of the Dambovita River. Bucharest have a population of about 2
million at the end of 2017, a surface about 238 km 2 and more than 1000000 cars. The intensity of the
traffic represent an important pollution source.[ (Balaceanu, et all 2004). studio dispersie pe bucuresti
facut de vestagem ] The specific area studied in this paper are near Centrul Stelutelor, a social support
and recovery centre for children in risk. This is situated in the central - north part of the city (figure 1.a).
The wind regime for Bucharest in 2018 recorded values closed to the multi-annual values. Dominant
wind directions are from NE and SW, while atmospheric calm represents 16.84% (Figure 1.b).

a) b)
Figure 1. Centrul Stelutelor location (a) and Bucharest Wind Rose (b)

SENSORS DEPLOYMENT AND DATA ACQUISITION

Pollution monitoring is essential to compare the impact of measures taken by municipalities and public
institutions and raise public awareness. The importance of this monitoring with Libelium station is so
high because the concentration obtained from this measurement must be in accordance with the regulated
by the European Commission in the Directive 96/62 on air quality, which aims to ensure public health of
citizens. Libelium Particle Matter Sensor uses scattering theory and particle counting technology and can
detect the number of particles in its surroundings to provide useful reference data for environmental
improvement. With the new dust sensor, we can obtain information about particle size and a density
ranging from 1µm to 10µm (PM2.5, PM10). The sampling interval is 200 ms, and the particle count rate is
20,000 particle /second.
The Libelium acquisition platform is composed of modular acquisition nodes (Waspmotes) and the
Meshlium device, which acts as IoT-Gateway. The data acquisition modules connect via 4G / WiFi to the
Internet or another (private) network to which Meshlium is connected and sends data to it. Once parsed in
the Meshlium, the IoT gateway stored the data in a MySQL database that ensures local persistence of
data. Sending data to Cloud is done through a software component that serializes data to an MQTT
broker. Next, the Adapter component (a software application developed in Python programming
language), is basically an MQTT client that subscribes to several topics and stores the data received from
the sensor in the database. Data visualization is then realized with an open platform for analytics and
monitoring, Grafana. The data flow architecture is presented in Figure 2 shown below, also in the same
figure can be observed the Libelium air quality monitoring node installed at the site location. The
Libelium station has installed an optical particle counter – OPC-N3 dust sensor. The OPC-N3 measures
the light scattered by individual particles carried in a sample air stream through a laser beam.
The OPC-N3 classifies each particle size, at rates up to ~10,000 particle per second, adding the particle
diameter to one of 24 “bins” covering the size range from ~0.35 to 40 μm. The resulting particle size
histograms can be evaluated over user-defined sampling times from 1 to 30 seconds duration, the
histogram data being transmitted along with other diagnostic and environmental data (air temperature and
air humidity). The Libelium data logger is configured to measure and send data at 15 minutes interval.

a) b)
Figure 2. Data flow architecture (a) and sensors deployed (b)

EXPERIMENTAL DATA AND RESULTS

For analysis the level of pollution in the Centru Stelutelor zone in spring season (for 61 days) the air
quality monitoring was performed with the Libelium station (Figure a). The pollution with PM10 and
PM2.5 concentrations in street level air are dominated by the combustion, non-combustion and
suspension emission originating from vehicular traffic. At the ground level, the traffic emissions have a
larger relative influence than the stationary emissions, which are mostly released from higher altitudes.

Figure 3. Daily concentration values for PM10 and PM2.5 measured in the test period

These graphs show that in most of the spring months, concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 are exceeded,
leading to high pollution due to traffic in the main boulevards near the study area.
For the same period was modelled the atmospheric dispersion of the PM10 and PM2.5 considering
emissions from traffic sources and background concentration. The model used is AERMOD 9.5. PM10
and PM2.5 concentration maps for daily and period time are presented in figures 5 and 6
 a) b)

Figure X – PM10 (a) and PM2.5 (b) [μg/Nm3] period concentration maps

a) b)

Figure x – PM10 (a) and PM2.5 (b) daily concentration [μg/Nm3] maps

From the analysis of the dispersion maps it is found that the PM10 and PM2.5 concentration value
reaches a level close to the pollution as the monitored values. Considering the wind direction, it is noticed
that the pollution from the traffic sources reaches in the Centrul Stelutelor area.

Statistical parameter PM10 concentration PM2.5 concentration

Modelled Measured Modelled Measured
Mean 36.08 34.11 30.47 28.86
Standard Error 0.67 0.74 0.66 0.73
Median 35.15 34 30.16 28.88
Mode 34 29 #N/A #N/A
Standard Deviation 5.30 5.83 5.18 5.73
Sample Variance 28.09 34.02 26.83 32.91
Range 23.38 23.60 22.42 22.68
Minimum 27.94 23.39 23.11 18.35
Maximum 51.32 47.12 45.53 41.03
Confidence Level for ± 1.35 ± 1.49 ± 1.32 ± 1.46
mean value (95.0%)
Figure x – Histogram of PM10 (a) and PM2.5 (b) for measured and modelled concentration
Pearsons correlation coefficients for PM10 concentration between modelled and monitored values is 0.73,
while for PM2.5 is 0.63. The lower value for PM2.5 is due the influence of local sources (small heating
installations based on natural gas) that are not considered in modelling given the difficulty in emission
estimation.

RESULTS

CONCLUSION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work has been supported in part by UEFISCDI Romania and MCI through projects ESTABLISH,
TelMonAer and WINS@HI, funded in part by European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation
program under grant agreement No. 777996 (SealedGRID) and No. 787002 (SAFECARE).

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