Research article

Assessing fine particulate matter concentrations and trends in southern Ontario, Canada, 2003–2012

  • Received: 02 October 2017 Accepted: 05 February 2018 Published: 09 February 2018
  • Fine particulate matter is primarily released by transportation, residential and industrial processes. It can cause cardiopulmonary problems and has been attributed to the development of diabetes. Ontario is Canada’s most populous province and shares its southern border with the United States of America. The 2003 Canada-United States Border Air Quality Strategy outlines an initiative to reduce air pollution, specifically targeting southern Ontario due to its proximity to the U.S. and its historical air pollution levels. Ambient air concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in southern Ontario were analyzed in this research. The data were obtained from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. There are 40 stations across Ontario that monitor concentrations of up to six airborne pollutants on an hourly basis. The purpose of this research was to examine ambient air quality trends from 2003 to 2012 by generating prediction surfaces using the ordinary kriging spatial interpolation technique. Average PM2.5 levels for each year as well as maximum pollutant concentrations for the lowest and the highest year were produced. The results showed that fine particulate matter levels decreased, and the maximum levels per year also declined significantly. This indicates that fine particulate matter was greatly reduced and air quality generally improved in terms of PM2.5 during the analysis period.

    Citation: K. Wayne Forsythe, Cameron Hare, Amy J. Buckland, Richard R. Shaker, Joseph M. Aversa, Stephen J. Swales, Michael W. MacDonald. Assessing fine particulate matter concentrations and trends in southern Ontario, Canada, 2003–2012[J]. AIMS Environmental Science, 2018, 5(1): 35-46. doi: 10.3934/environsci.2018.1.35

    Related Papers:

  • Fine particulate matter is primarily released by transportation, residential and industrial processes. It can cause cardiopulmonary problems and has been attributed to the development of diabetes. Ontario is Canada’s most populous province and shares its southern border with the United States of America. The 2003 Canada-United States Border Air Quality Strategy outlines an initiative to reduce air pollution, specifically targeting southern Ontario due to its proximity to the U.S. and its historical air pollution levels. Ambient air concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in southern Ontario were analyzed in this research. The data were obtained from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment. There are 40 stations across Ontario that monitor concentrations of up to six airborne pollutants on an hourly basis. The purpose of this research was to examine ambient air quality trends from 2003 to 2012 by generating prediction surfaces using the ordinary kriging spatial interpolation technique. Average PM2.5 levels for each year as well as maximum pollutant concentrations for the lowest and the highest year were produced. The results showed that fine particulate matter levels decreased, and the maximum levels per year also declined significantly. This indicates that fine particulate matter was greatly reduced and air quality generally improved in terms of PM2.5 during the analysis period.


    加载中
    [1] Geddes JA, Murphy JG, Wang DK (2009) Long term changes in nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds in Toronto and the challenges facing local ozone control. Atmos Environ 43: 3407–3715. doi: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2009.03.053
    [2] Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE), (2013a) Air Quality in Ontario Report for 2011.
    [3] Miller DE, Watmough SA (2009) Air pollution, climate, soil acidity, and indicators of forest health in Ontario's sugar maple forests. Can J Forest Res 39: 2065–2079. doi: 10.1139/X09-124
    [4] Chen H, Burnett RT, Kwong JC, et al. (2013) Risk of Incident Diabetes in Relation to Long-term Exposure to Fine Particulate Matter in Ontario, Canada. Environ Health Persp 121: 804–810. doi: 10.1289/ehp.1205958
    [5] He MZ, Zeng X, Zhang K, et al. (2017) Fine Particulate Matter Concentrations in Urban Chinese Cities, 2005-2016: A Systematic Review. Int J Environ Res Public Health 14: 191. doi: 10.3390/ijerph14020191
    [6] Kheirbek I, Haney J, Douglas S, et al. (2014) The Public Health Benefits of Reducing Fine Particulate Matter through Conversion to Cleaner Heating Fuels in New York City. Environ Sci Technol 48: 13573–13582. doi: 10.1021/es503587p
    [7] Kheirbek I, Haney J, Douglas S, et al. (2016) The contribution of motor vehicle emissions to ambient fine particulate matter public health impacts in New York City: a health burden assessment. Environ Health 15: 89. doi: 10.1186/s12940-016-0172-6
    [8] Lo WC, Shie RH, Chan CC, et al. (2017) Burden of disease attributable to ambient fine particulate matter exposure in Taiwan. J Formos Med Assoc 116: 32–40. doi: 10.1016/j.jfma.2015.12.007
    [9] Song Y, Wanga X, Maherb BA, et al. (2016) The spatial-temporal characteristics and health impacts of ambient fine particulate matter in China. J Clean Prod 112: 1312–1318. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.05.006
    [10] Sharma M, Maloo S (2005) Assessment of ambient air PM10 and PM2.5 and characterization of PM10 in the city of Kanpur, India. Atmos Environ 39: 6015–6026.
    [11] Williams ML (2008) Air Quality Risk Management. J Toxicol Environ Health 71: 9–12. doi: 10.1080/15287390701557362
    [12] Amatullah H, North ML, Akhtar US, et al. (2012) Comparative cardiopulmonary effects of size-fractioned airborne particulate matter. Inhal Toxicol24: 161–171.
    [13] Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) (2013) 2010 Progress Report on the Canada-Wide Standards for Particulate Matter and Ozone.
    [14] Lee S, Serre ML, van Donkelaar A, et al. (2012) Comparison of Geostatistical Interpolation and Remote Sensing Techniques for Estimating Long-Term Exposure to Ambient PM2.5 Concentrations across the Continental United States. Environ Health Persp 120: 1727–1732.
    [15] Miller L, Farhana S, Xu X (2010) Trans-boundary air pollution in Windsor, Ontario (Canada). Procedia Environ Sci 2: 585–594. doi: 10.1016/j.proenv.2010.10.064
    [16] Forsythe KW, Marvin CH, Mitchell DE, et al. (2016) Utilization of bathymetry data to examine lead sediment contamination distributions in Lake Ontario. AIMS Environ Sci 3: 347–361. doi: 10.3934/environsci.2016.3.347
    [17] Gawedzki A, Forsythe KW (2012) Assessing Anthracene and Arsenic Contamination within Buffalo River Sediments. Int J Ecol 2012: 1–9.
    [18] Forsythe KW, Marvin CH (2009) Assessing historical versus contemporary mercury and lead contamination in Lake Huron sediments. Aquat Ecosyst Health 12: 101–109. doi: 10.1080/14634980802690873
    [19] Forsythe KW, Paudel K, Marvin CH (2010) Geospatial Analysis of Zinc Contamination in Lake Ontario Sediments. J Environ Inform 16: 1–10. doi: 10.3808/jei.201000172
    [20] Hooyberghs J, Mensink C, Dumont G, et al. (2006) Spatial interpolation of ambient ozone concentrations from sparse monitoring points in Belgium. J Environ Monitor 8: 1129–1135. doi: 10.1039/b612607n
    [21] Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) (2007) Air Quality in Ontario 2006 Report.
    [22] Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) (2013) Drive Clean. Available from: https://www.ontario.ca/page/drive-clean-test
    [23] Galvez O (2007) Synoptic-scale transport of ozone into Southern Ontario. Atmos Environ 41: 8579–8595. doi: 10.1016/j.atmosenv.2007.07.019
    [24] Ontario Ministry of the Environment (MOE) (2013c) Smog Advisory Statistics. Available from: http://www.airqualityontario.com/aqhi/advisories_stats.php
  • Reader Comments
  • © 2018 the Author(s), licensee AIMS Press. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
通讯作者: 陈斌, bchen63@163.com
  • 1. 

    沈阳化工大学材料科学与工程学院 沈阳 110142

  1. 本站搜索
  2. 百度学术搜索
  3. 万方数据库搜索
  4. CNKI搜索

Metrics

Article views(4208) PDF downloads(1103) Cited by(1)

Article outline

Figures and Tables

Figures(4)  /  Tables(2)

/

DownLoad:  Full-Size Img  PowerPoint
Return
Return

Catalog