Long term PM2.5 trends in the Australian industrial city of Newcastle: a 15-year study from 1998 to 2013
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2014-04-30
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
CSIRO Publishing
Abstract
A long-term, large dataset approach combining standard accelerator-based ion beam analysis (IBA) techniques with positive matrix factorisation (PMF) analysis to determine the sources and trends of fine particle pollution in the Newcastle NSW, Australia is discussed. Over 1500 samples of particle matter with aerodynamic diameter less than 2.5 µm (PM2.5) were collected between February 1998 and December 2013 and analysed using IBA techniques to obtain the concentration of 22 different elements from hydrogen to lead. The PM2.5 15-year average mass at the sampling site was 8.11 µg m–3. Statistical PMF analysis was applied to this large dataset to quantitatively determine nine source fingerprints; soil, secondary sulfate, sea, smoke, industrial processes (specifically related to calcium, manganese and iron) and two different automobile sources. Significant step-like reductions of 98, 79 and 69 %, over and above regular seasonal variations, were clearly observed in the industrial-Mn, industrial-Fe and automobile sources during this time period. These trends showed excellent correlation with the cessation of large industrial operations in the local area and clearly demonstrate the advantage of long-term aerosol analysis for monitoring and managing fine particle air pollution sources on a local scale. © 2014, CSIRO.
Description
Keywords
Ion beams, Hydrogen, Aerosols, Air pollution, Soils, Data
Citation
Stelcer, E., Cohen, D. D., & Atanacio, A. J. (2014). Long term PM2.5 trends in the Australian industrial city of Newcastle: a 15-year study from 1998 to 2013. Environmental Chemistry, 11(6), 644-652. doi:10.1071/EN14090