Environment International (Mar 2024)

Inter-annual trends of ultrafine particles in urban Europe

  • Meritxell Garcia-Marlès,
  • Rosa Lara,
  • Cristina Reche,
  • Noemí Pérez,
  • Aurelio Tobías,
  • Marjan Savadkoohi,
  • David Beddows,
  • Imre Salma,
  • Máté Vörösmarty,
  • Tamás Weidinger,
  • Christoph Hueglin,
  • Nikos Mihalopoulos,
  • Georgios Grivas,
  • Panayiotis Kalkavouras,
  • Jakub Ondráček,
  • Nadĕžda Zíková,
  • Jarkko V. Niemi,
  • Hanna E. Manninen,
  • David C. Green,
  • Anja H. Tremper,
  • Michael Norman,
  • Stergios Vratolis,
  • Konstantinos Eleftheriadis,
  • Francisco J. Gómez-Moreno,
  • Elisabeth Alonso-Blanco,
  • Alfred Wiedensohler,
  • Kay Weinhold,
  • Maik Merkel,
  • Susanne Bastian,
  • Barbara Hoffmann,
  • Hicran Altug,
  • Jean-Eudes Petit,
  • Olivier Favez,
  • Sebastiao Martins Dos Santos,
  • Jean-Philippe Putaud,
  • Adelaide Dinoi,
  • Daniele Contini,
  • Hilkka Timonen,
  • Janne Lampilahti,
  • Tuukka Petäjä,
  • Marco Pandolfi,
  • Philip K. Hopke,
  • Roy M. Harrison,
  • Andrés Alastuey,
  • Xavier Querol

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 185
p. 108510

Abstract

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Ultrafine particles (UFP, those with diameters ≤ 100 nm), have been reported to potentially penetrate deeply into the respiratory system, translocate through the alveoli, and affect various organs, potentially correlating with increased mortality. The aim of this study is to assess long-term trends (5–11 years) in mostly urban UFP concentrations based on measurements of particle number size distributions (PNSD). Additionally, concentrations of other pollutants and meteorological variables were evaluated to support the interpretations. PNSD datasets from 12 urban background (UB), 5 traffic (TR), 3 suburban background (SUB) and 1 regional background (RB) sites in 15 European cities and 1 in the USA were evaluated. The non-parametric Theil-Sen’s method was used to detect monotonic trends. Meta-analyses were carried out to assess the overall trends and those for different environments. The results showed significant decreases in NO, NO2, BC, CO, and particle concentrations in the Aitken (25–100 nm) and the Accumulation (100–800 nm) modes, suggesting a positive impact of the implementation of EURO 5/V and 6/VI vehicle standards on European air quality. The growing use of Diesel Particle Filters (DPFs) might also have clearly reduced exhaust emissions of BC, PM, and the Aitken and Accumulation mode particles. However, as reported by prior studies, there remains an issue of poor control of Nucleation mode particles (smaller than 25 nm), which are not fully reduced with current DPFs, without emission controls for semi-volatile organic compounds, and might have different origins than road traffic. Thus, contrasting trends for Nucleation mode particles were obtained across the cities studied. This mode also affected the UFP and total PNC trends because of the high proportion of Nucleation mode particles in both concentration ranges. It was also found that the urban temperature increasing trends might have also influenced those of PNC, Nucleation and Aitken modes.

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