Abstract

DANTAS, Lúcia; AZEVEDO, João C.  and  FELICIANO, Manuel. Impact of domestic woody biomass burning on the levels of PM_2,5 in the city of Bragança, Portugal. Rev. de Ciências Agrárias [online]. 2017, vol.40, n.spe, pp.371-380. ISSN 0871-018X.  https://doi.org/10.19084/RCA16191.

We evaluated the influence of residential firewood combustion in the PM_2,5 fraction of the atmospheric particulate matter in the city of Bragança, Portugal. Day and night time measurements were carried out between December 2013 and May 2014 in 35 urban sampling points. We also collected data on potential influencing factors of air particle concentration which we related statistically with PM_2,5 observation data. Temporal variation and spatial patterning of atmospheric PM_2,5 concentrations highlighted the contribution of PM_2,5 emissions from domestic firewood use. Night time levels of PM_2,5 were in general higher in areas of lower altitude, higher population density and higher firewood combustion intensity. Our results also indicated that during the study period, mean daily PM_2,5 concentrations were higher than the World Health Organization reference level in more than half of the city area. This study strengthened the importance of monitoring and controlling this source of atmospheric pollution in cities of high use of firewood for energy.

Keywords : Particulate matter; domestic combustion; woody biomass; kriging; cokriging.

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