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• Chemical and biological air pollutants, as parameters of complex air quality indices

  16-23

  Tekal Eötvös

  László Makra

  Views:

  53

  Human health is essentially influenced by air quality. Atmospheric air in residential areas contains many pollutants. The monitoring and the plain publishing of the measured values are important both for the authorities and the public. Air quality is often characterized by constructing air quality indices, and these indices are used to inform the public. The construction of an advanced air quality index is usually done by averaging the measured data usually in time and space; hereby important aspects of the data can be lost. All known indices contain only chemical pollutants, while certain biological pollutants can enhance the effects of the chemical pollutants and vice versa. In this paper we discuss the importance of integrating biological pollutants into air quality indices. In order to increase efficacy of these indices to the civil society we aim to introduce geographic information system (GIS) methods into publishing air quality information.

• Relation of meteorological elements and air pollutants to respiratory diseases

  1-15

  Szintia Tombácz

  László Makra

  Views:

  57

  This paper determines the characteristic weather types over the Carpathian Basin for the summer – early autumn period (July 15 – October 15) and the winter months (December, January, and February), with the levels of chemical (CO, NO, NO2 , NO2/NO, O3, O3max, SO2, PM10) and biological [Ambrosia (ragweed) pollen] air pollutants, and with their effect to the respiratory diseases. Based on the ECMWF data set, daily sea-level pressure fields analysed at 00 UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) were prepared for each weather type (cluster) in order to detect the relation between, on the one hand, the sea-level pressure patterns and, on the other, the levels of the chemical and biological air pollutants as well as the frequency of the respiratory diseases in Szeged. Objective definition of the characteristic weather types occurred by using the methods of Factor Analysis and Cluster Analysis. As a result, in the summer – early autumn period the total patient number is proportional to the mean monthly temperature, the maximum and minimum temperatures; however, respiratory diseases occur more frequently, when relative humidity is low. On the other hand, in the winter months there is no relation between the meteorological variables and the patient numbers.

• Environmental monitoring using linden tree leaves as natural traps of atmospheric deposition: a pilot study in Transilvania, Romania

  24-35

  Mihály Braun

  Zita Margitai

  Albert Tóth

  Martine Leermakers

  Views:

  115

  Atmospheric pollution caused by toxic elements is an emerging problem of concern. Tree leaves have been widely used as indicator of atmospheric pollutions and they are effective alternatives to the more usual biomonitoring methods. Tree leaves can be used as natural traps of atmospheric deposition. Elemental composition of dust deposited onto leaf surfaces can be used to characterize the urban environment. A pilot survey including 16 Romanian settlements was carried out in order to evaluate the characteristics and sources of air pollutants. Tree leaves (Tilia tomentosa, Tilia cordata, Tilia platyphyllos) were collected and used for the measurements. Elemental analyses were carried out by ICP-OES and ICP-MS. Principal component and discriminant analyses were used to characterizing and estimating the level of pollution. Settlements were grouped on the basis of discriminant function values. Multivariate comparison of chemical data ordered the settlements into 3 main groups, which showed a systematic geographic distribution.