Evaluating the Air Pollution Impact Using Environmental Monitoring, Dispersion Modeling and Volunteered Geographic Information Systems

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.