Found 9985 publications. Showing page 72 of 400:
2021
2021
Long-term trends of air pollutants at national level 2005-2019
Trend calculations of air pollutants for the periods 2005-2019 have been applied. Sulphur dioxide shows the largest decrease of all pollutants with a reduction of the order of 60-70 %. The agreement between reported emission data and measured concentrations are quite good. For NO2, a mismatch between the trend in air concentrations and NOx emissions is found. While the overall NOx emissions are reported to be reduced by 45 %, the measured NO2 data indicate a decline of the order of 30 % although marked differences between the countries are found. This mismatch could not be explained by changes in meteorology as this is accounted for. Possible reasons for the mismatch could be the NO2/NOx ratio of the emissions, changes in baseline hemispheric ozone concentration and natural emissions. For PM data (PM10 and PM2.5) we find an opposite mismatch, meaning that the PM concentrations show stronger downward trends than the reported emissions. This is likely an effect of the importance of secondary aerosols which are mitigated by other activities than the direct PM emissions. An overall reduction in PM10 of the order of 30-38 % is found during 2005-2019 while the direct emissions give a reduction that is 5-10 percentage units smaller. Similar results are found for PM2.5, but these findings are uncertain due to the less amount of long-term data. For O3, our findings are in line with earlier studies noting that the annual mean ozone concentration has increased while the high peaks have been reduced. But the reduction of the peaks is now within only a few percent and non-significant, while for the 2000-2017 period it was significant and about 10%.
ETC/ATNI
2021
2021
2021
2021
2021
2021
2021
2021
Urban herring gulls (Larus argentatus) are exposed to contaminants from aquatic, terrestrial and anthropogenic sources. We aim to assess if differences in urbanisation affect ecological niche and contaminant concentrations in female herring gulls. Furthermore, we investigated maternal transfer from mothers to eggs for all the target compounds, including chlorinated paraffins (CPs) and cyclic volatile methyl siloxane (cVMSs), which to our knowledge have not been assessed in herring gulls previously. We compare concentrations of legacy and emerging contaminants and metals in blood and eggs between two herring gull colonies located 51 km apart, in the urban influenced Norwegian Oslofjord. While both colonies are within an urbanised area, the inner fjord is more so, as it is surrounded by Oslo, the capital and largest city in Norway Stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen indicated a more marine ecological niche in the outer than the inner fjord colony, although with overlap. Persistent organic pollutant (POP) concentrations were similar in the inner and outer fjord colonies, while the short-chained chlorinated paraffins (SCCP), which are recently added to the Stockholm convention and contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) varied, with higher concentrations of SCCP and the cVMS decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) in females and eggs of the inner fjord colony. Per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS) concentrations were higher in the outer fjord colony, likely linked to releases from a point-source (airport and waste management facility with open access to food waste). In blood, chlorinated paraffins contributed most the total lipophilic contaminants (inner: 78%, outer: 56%), while polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were the most abundant lipophilic contaminants in eggs (inner: 62%, outer: 46%). Dechloranes and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) were detected in few samples. Maternal transfer, assessed by egg to blood ratios, of cVMSs were similar to the POPs with mean log ratio 0.39 (D5), while it was lower for SCCPs, with log ratios-0.77. Our results indicate comparable POP exposure of the herring gulls in the inner and outer Oslofjord, likely due to overlap in ecological niches between the colonies and wide distribution of POPs. The differences between the colonies in concentrations of PFAS, cVMS and CPs shows that point source exposures and urban influence may be more important than ecological niche for these compounds.
2021
Development of Renewable Energy and its Impact on Air Quality. Co-benefits and Trade-Offs.
This study is an continuation of the work initiated in the European Topic Centre on Climate Change Mitigation and Energy (ETC/CME; report 2019/8) on the effect of the development of renewable energy sources (RES) since 2005 on emissions of anthropogenic air pollutants, which found that RES have led to an estimated increase of primary particulate matter emissions and a decrease of emissions of sulphur oxides and nitrogen oxides. The current study aims at evaluating the impact of these emission changes on air quality and human health by using the air quality model CHIMERE to understand the distribution of emissions. To this end, the emissions corresponding to a reference scenario and to different scenarios of development of renewable energy sources were spatialized over Europe based on the spatialization of emissions used within the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). The CHIMERE model was applied to calculate, for the year 2016, the impact of the different scenarios on air quality. Finally, the possible impact on human health was assessed. We also include a specific section devoted to residential emission spatialization techniques to review the related uncertainties.
According to the simulation results using emissions based on official data, significant increases of particulate matter concentrations exceeding 1 μg/m3 were found for some countries, linked primarily to the increase in residential wood burning when comparing 2005 with 2016. Exceptions were Portugal and Greece (two countries that decreased their use of biomass for heating). At the scale of the EU27+UK, in 2016, the interplay between emission increases due to biomass use and emission decreases due to all other RES growth is estimated to be responsible for around 9 200 premature deaths and 97 000 years of life lost. As such, the increase in solid biomass heating alone, (due particularly by the high emissions of fine particulate matter from domestic stoves), is estimated to be responsible for an increase of around 10 700 premature deaths and 113 000 years of life lost in 2016. These premature deaths could have been prevented by promoting the development of other RES than solid biomass heating.
Similar results were found at the European scale with simulations using emissions based on expert estimates but with strong differences according to the country. The differences are mostly due to differences in emissions that may not account for semi-volatile organic compounds for some countries. Excluding heating with biomass, all other RES use appears to have led to small reductions of particulate matter concentrations across the Union, with air quality benefits estimated at 1 600 avoided premature deaths and 16 000 prevented years of life lost in 2016. This is because the deployment of RES other than heating from solid biomass from 2005 to 2016 only lead to small changes in emissions of pollutants. However, these sources represented only 13% of the heating and electricity production in 2016.
ETC/ATNI
2021
2021
Environmental Contaminants in an Urban Fjord, 2020
This programme, “Environmental Contaminants in an Urban Fjord” has covered sampling and analyses of sediment and organisms in a marine food web of the Inner Oslofjord, in addition to samples of blood and eggs from herring gull. The programme also included inputs of pollutants via surface water (stormwater), and effluent water and sludge from a wastewater treatment plant. The bioaccumulation potential of the contaminants in the Oslo fjord food web was evaluated. The exposure to/accumulation of the contaminants was also assessed in birds. A vast number of chemical parameters have been quantified, in addition to some biological effect parameters in cod, and the report serves as a status description of the concentrations of these chemicals in different compartments of the Inner Oslofjord marine ecosystem.
Norsk institutt for vannforskning (NIVA)
2021
2021
PAH measurements at Lista. January 2020 – December 2020.
On behalf of Aluminiumindustriens Miljøsekretariat (AMS) and Alcoa Lista, NILU – Norwegian institute for air research has
conducted a sampling campaign in the surroundings of the Alcoa Lista aluminium smelter in order to update the knowledge on PAH-concentrations around the smelter today. Samples were taken in the period January – December 2020 and
analysed for particle bound PAHs. As a consequence of reduced emissions compared to earlier measurements, the ambient
concentrations of benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) were reduced. BaP had an annual average concentration below the target value at
both sampling sites. At Huseby, the lower assessment threshold was exceeded. PAH-levels in the area were similar to those observed in Norwegian cities.
NILU
2021
2021