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The paper describes the application of real-time environmental monitoring, local and long-range transport dispersion modeling and Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) systems that can improve the fast knowledge regarding the air pollution status to determine the actual outdoor conditions for living in a specific urban area. A case study using such techniques is presented for a pollution event with fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in Targoviste, Romania. PM2.5 time series were recorded during the pollution event by two optical monitoring systems providing an average of 184.1, maximum of 323, and minimum of 107 �g m-3 (DustTrackTM 8533 EP system), and 177.4, 321 and 93 �g m-3 (Rokidair microstation), respectively. PM2.5 concentrations and forward trajectories were computed using two programs: BREEZE� AERMOD 7.9 and HYSPLIT dispersion model. The obtained results emphasize the usefulness of embedding dispersion modeling advanced tools to supplement monitoring results and to characterize the source apportionment.

This paper presents the approach used to develop the information chain required to reach the objectives of the EEA Grants� RokidAIR project in two Romanian cities i.e., Targoviste and Ploiesti. It describes the PM2.5 monitoring infrastructure and architecture to the web-based GIS platform, the early warning system and the decision support system, and finally, the linking of air pollution to health effects in children. In addition, it shows the analysis performance of the designed system to process the collected time series from various data sources using the benzene concentrations monitored in Ploiesti. Moreover, this paper suggests that biomarkers, mobile technologies, and Citizens� Observatories are potential perspectives to improve data coverage by the provision of near-real-time air quality maps, and provide personal exposure and health assessment results, enabling the citizens� engagement and behavioural change. This paper also addresses new fields in nature-based solutions to improve air quality, and studies on air pollution and its mental health effects in the urban areas of Romania.

The study examines the association between exposure to sub-micrometric Particulate Matter (PM1) and allergic response in a group of sensitive young children (age: 2–10 years) from Ploiesti city, Romania. The city is the only urban agglomeration in Europe surrounded by four oil refineries. A panel study was conducted by collecting medical information from children with respiratory illnesses and atopy (n = 135). Hot Spot Analysis revealed the areas of the city that are susceptible to high levels of PM1. We found a close interaction between exposure to PM1 outdoor concentrations and various physiological changes and clinical symptoms in children including triggering of allergic reactions, rhinitis, alteration of lung function, upper and lower respiratory tract symptoms, and bronchial asthma. During the 2-year study period, the incidence of hospitalizations was 40.7%. Strong correlations (p Capsule Exposure to sub-micrometric particles (PM1) influences the frequency of wheezing episodes, hospitalizations, and the levels of allergic blood indicators in children, especially in infants and pre-schoolers.

Exposure to airborne fine particulate matter (PM2.5) carries substantial health risks, particularly for younger children (0–10 years). Epidemiological evidence indicates that children are more susceptible to PM health effects than adults. We conducted a literature review to obtain an overview of existing knowledge regarding the correlation of exposure to short- and long-term PM concentrations with respiratory symptoms and disease in children. A collection of scientific papers and topical reviews were selected in cooperation with two experienced paediatricians. The literature review was performed using the keywords “air pollution”, “particulate matter”, “children’s health” and “respiratory” from 1950 to 2016, searching the databases of Scopus, Google Scholar, Web of Science, and PubMed. The search provided 45,191 studies for consideration. Following the application of eligibility criteria and experts’ best judgment to titles and abstracts, 28 independent studies were deemed relevant for further detailed review and knowledge extraction. The results showed that most studies focused mainly on the effect of short-term exposure in children, and the reported associations were relatively homogeneous amongst the studies. Most of the respiratory diseases observed in outdoor studies were related to changes in lung function and exacerbation of asthma symptoms. Allergic reactions were frequently reported in indoor studies. Asthma exacerbation, severe respiratory symptoms and moderate airway obstruction on spirometry were also observed in children due to various sources of indoor pollution in households and schools. Mixed indoor and outdoor studies indicate frequent occurrence of wheezing and deterioration of lung function. There is good evidence of the adverse effect of short-term exposure to PM on children’s respiratory health. In terms of long-term exposure, fine particles (PM0.1–PM2.5) represent a higher risk factor than coarse particles (PM2.5–PM10). Additional research is required to better understand the heterogeneous sources and the association of PM and adverse children’s health outcomes. We recommend long-term cooperation between air quality specialists, paediatricians, epidemiologists, and parents in order to improve the knowledge of PM effects on young children’s respiratory health. A Review of Airborne Particulate Matter Effects on Young Children’s Respiratory Symptoms and Diseases

The present study analyzes the background pollution in Romania using official data reported for recorded air pollutants from the automated regional stations located at three mountain sites. A series of key figures regarding the trend of background pollution at Romanian mountain sites was extracted based on annual average concentrations recorded between 2010 and 2013 i.e. 8.8 5.2 g NO2/m3, 5.3 1.6 g SO2/m3, 0.075 0.035 g CO/m3, 3.2 0.9 g C6H6/m3 and 11.4 6.9 g PM10/m3. A case study is presented for EM-3 EMEP Station (RO0008R, Poiana Stampei) located in the north of Romania. Multivariate techniques provided the trends and patterns of collected data structure. Meteorological input data were long time series (1961-2012) of air pressure, air temperature, precipitations, sunshine hours, cloud cover, and relative humidity in the area. Strong correlations were observed between air pollutants, and between air pollutants and meteorological factors. The latent factors resulted from the Principal Component Analysis have explained the total variance in the data structure of Poiana Stampei as follows: factor 1 meteorology; factor 2 aerosols; and factor 3 heavy metals. NOAA HYSPLIT backward trajectory model was applied to overview the most probable source region of two pollution episodes (NO2 and SO2) at EM-3 location. The results confirmed that meteorological processes, local topography and air mass trajectory controlled significantly the amount of air pollution in the studied area.

The paper presents the application of cross-spectrum analysis (CSA) to air pollution and meteorological time series collected from seven air quality monitoring stations located in three urban agglomerations of Romania, affected by industrial and traffic pollution: Brasov, Ploiesti and Târgoviste. Data have been collected from November 2011 till March 2012, at one hour sampling rate. The purpose of the analysis was to reveal the correlations between two series at different frequencies. The in-sync interaction assessments started from the cross-periodogram, which was realized by smoothing using Parzen window. All computed crossamplitude values were interpreted as a measure of covariance between the respective frequency components in the two series, selecting five highest peaks with the associated corresponding periods, which were filtered out and decreasingly ranked. The results show an important contribution of short-term fluctuations (12 hours and 24 hours periods) to the total variance for the analyzed pollutants (nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and suspended particles), with significant dependence on the meteorological factor (incident radiation, air temperature or relative humidity) and less on the site conditions. Many significant bivariate correlations were also observed in the total of 48 possible pollutant – meteorological factor pairs: 33 (p < 0.01) and 3 (p < 0.05). This type of data analysis might help the identification of constants or patterns characterizing the interactions between variables, which is a useful tool for the parameterization and calibration of air pollution models.

The overall objective of this research was to study children’s respiratory illness levels in Targoviste (Romania) in relationship to the outdoor concentrations of airborne particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter below 2.5 µm (PM2.5). We monitored and analysed the PM2.5 concentrations according to a complex experimental protocol. The health trial was conducted over three months (October–December 2015) and required the active cooperation of the children’s parents to monitor carefully the respiratory symptoms of the child, i.e., coughing, rhinorrhoea, wheezing, and fever, as well as their outdoor program. We selected the most sensitive children (n = 25; age: 2–10 years) with perturbed respiratory health, i.e., wheezing, asthma, and associated symptoms. The estimated average PM2.5 doses were 0.8–14.5 µg·day−1 for weekdays, and 0.4–6.6 µg·day−1 for the weekend. The frequency and duration of the symptoms decreased with increasing age. The 4- to 5-year old children recorded the longest duration of symptoms, except for rhinorrhoea, which suggested that this age interval is the most vulnerable to exogenous trigger agents (p < 0.01) compared to the other age groups. PM2.5 air pollution was found to have a direct positive correlation with the number of wheezing episodes (r = 0.87; p < 0.01) in November 2015. Monitoring of wheezing occurrences in the absence of fever can provide a reliable assessment of the air pollution effect on the exacerbation of asthma and respiratory disorders in sensitive children.

Introduction: It is well documented that air pollution has negative health effects, but children's exposure to air pollution is of special concern. There are many studies on children’s exposure to ...

Emissions of air pollutants derive from almost all economic and societal activities. Due to the concentration of crude oil processing activities around Ploiesti city, which is an urban agglomeration of Romania, this area was carefully monitored regarding air pollutants concentrations. The aim of this work was the characterization of air quality in the city of Ploiesti, affected by industrial and traffic pollution, the analysis of nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) and sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) concentrations collected from a continuous monitoring system and the identification of some relationships between air pollution and meteorological parameters in the studied area. Descriptive statistics was applied to analyze the time series of air pollutants monitored by an automated monitoring network composed by six stations, in order to establish the relationship between air pollutants and important weather factors. Data were measured in Ploiesti urban area between November 2011 and March 2012. The statistical models indicated that weather variables such as temperature and relative humidity had significant impact on the most air pollutants.

Pollutants' data, meteorological data and medical data feeds the relational database with information from vulnerable urban areas (i.e., Targoviste and Ploiesti), which will help the running of algorithms between air quality, meteorology and health effects and later use of forecasted outputs to forecast health effects. Several computer-based tools were developed to facilitate the population of the database with specific data from various sources. One of these tools allows the automatic capturing of pollutants’ concentrations from web-based official sources. The relational database structure integrates the fields for the required variables in the attributed data tables (PM 2.5 and carried compounds/metals sub-database, meteorological sub-database and medical sub-database). The main criteria in selecting the respiratory illnesses that are linked to atmospheric pollution for children are the wheezing. The medical database contains as main fields: the number of wheezing episodes, number of asthma attacks (with hospitalization), the response to inhalation medication, medication controller, eosinophil count, serum level of E immunoglobins (lgE), and residential address and school/kindergarten address of the children. The presented database structure and adjacent tools are expected to improve the current monitoring methodology of air pollutants, mainly respirable dusts, and their content in various compounds in correlation with children’s health.

The aim of this study was to link the concentrations of particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter below 2.5 μm (PM2.5) and associated heavy metals with occurrence of wheezing and hospitalizations due to wheezing in 111 children who live near metallurgical plants in Targoviste City, Romania. A group of 72 children with high levels of immunoglobulin E (IgE) and eosinophils, as well as frequent wheezing episodes, was geolocated on digital thematic maps. Monitoring campaigns and medical assessments were performed over two consecutive years (2013-2014). The multiannual average concentrations of PM2.5 ranged from 4.6 to 22.5 μg m(-3), up to a maximum value of 102 μg m(-3). Significant correlations (p 0.01) were observed between the locations of the children with respiratory issues and the PM2.5 multiannual average (r = 0.985) and PM2.5 maximum (r = 0.813). Fe, Ni, Cd, and Cr were the main marker elements of the emissions from steel production and metal-working facilities in the Targoviste area. The results support the hypothesis that increased PM2.5 levels directly influence wheezing symptom and asthma attacks in the analyzed group. IgE, eosinophils, and wheezing episodes may be considered key indicators with which to evaluate the adverse effects of PM2.5 air pollution on children's health.

Some of the major stressors of air quality in the urban areas are nitrogen oxides, ozone and suspended particles. The effect of air pollution on respiratory diseases can increase considerably at high levels of pollution and might trigger asthma symptoms. Longterm exposure can increase the rate of respiratory infections and symptoms at population level, but particularly in children. The goal was to analyze with statistical techniques the pollutant concentrations (NO, NO2, and SO2) recorded by 15 automated monitoring stations, to establish weekdays-weekend trends in various towns of the South Muntenia Region during cold months when residential heating contributes to the overall emissions. Raw data of the monitored parameters were acquired from 7 stations for NO and NO2, and 14 stations for SO2. Data acquisition and processing were performed between November 15, 2013 and February 28, 2014 and hourly-recorded time series were characterized for central tendency, dispersion and distribution. The statistical analysis determined the degree of differentiation between different sites and time intervals of the monitored pollutants using the screening of air quality trends based on hourly concentrations of each weekday using a specific grouping of data. The results support the characterization of weekday/weekend patterns in air pollutant concentrations in several urban areas of Southern Romania, where air pollution data were available: 4 cities (NO, NO2) i.e., Ploiesti, Slobozia, Turnu Magurele, and Giurgiu, respectively 6 cities (SO2), i.e., Ploiesti, Pitesti, Cimpulung, Giurgiu, Alexandria and Turnu Magurele.