Author
Listed:
- Halley L. Brantley
(Department of Statistics, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27607, USA)
- Gayle S.W. Hagler
(U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711, USA)
- Scott C. Herndon
(Aerodyne Research Inc., Billerica, MA 01821, USA)
- Paola Massoli
(Aerodyne Research Inc., Billerica, MA 01821, USA)
- Michael H. Bergin
(Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA)
- Armistead G. Russell
(Civil and Environmental Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA)
Abstract
Railyards are important transportation hubs, and they are often situated near populated areas with high co-located density of manufacturing, freight movement and commercial enterprises. Emissions occurring within railyards can affect nearby air quality. To better understand the air pollution levels in proximity to a major railyard, an intensive mobile air monitoring study was conducted in May 2012 around a major railyard area in Atlanta, GA, constituted of two separate facilities situated side-by-side. A total of 19 multi-hour mobile monitoring sessions took place over different times of day, days of the week, and under a variety of wind conditions. High time resolution measurements included black carbon (BC), particle number concentration (PN), particle optical extinction (EXT), oxides of nitrogen (NO, NO 2 , NOy), carbon monoxide (CO), and speciated air toxics. Urban background was estimated to contribute substantially (>70%) to EXT and CO, whereas BC, oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and toluene had comparably low background contributions (<30%). Mobile monitoring data were aggregated into 50 meter spatial medians by wind categories, with categories including low speed wind conditions (<0.5 m s −1 ) and, for wind speeds above that threshold, by wind direction relative to the railyard. Spatial medians of different pollutants measured had a wide range of correlation—gas-phase air toxics (benzene, toluene, acetaldehyde) had moderate correlation with each other (r = 0.46–0.59) and between toluene and CO (r = 0.53), but lower correlation for other pairings. PN had highest correlation with oxides of nitrogen (r = 0.55–0.66), followed by BC (r = 0.4), and lower correlation with other pollutants. Multivariate regression analysis on the full set of 50 m medians found BC and NO as having the strongest relationship to railyard emissions, in comparison to their respective background levels. This was indicated by an increase associated with transiting through the yard and inverse relationship with distance from the railyard; NO and BC decreased by a factor of approximately 0.5 and 0.7 over 1 km distance of the railyard boundary, respectively. Low speed, variable wind conditions were related to higher concentrations of all measured parameters.
Suggested Citation
Halley L. Brantley & Gayle S.W. Hagler & Scott C. Herndon & Paola Massoli & Michael H. Bergin & Armistead G. Russell, 2019.
"Characterization of Spatial Air Pollution Patterns Near a Large Railyard Area in Atlanta, Georgia,"
IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-14, February.
Handle:
RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:4:p:535-:d:205514
Download full text from publisher
Corrections
All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:4:p:535-:d:205514. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through
the various RePEc services.