In this thesis, it is aimed to investigate and analyze the effect of meteorological conditions on airborne dust measured at Ovacik Open Pit Gold Mine. Meteorological data must be sound and reliable which are used mainly to design an air model to predict the effect of industrial sites on air quality during production. Wind speed, wind direction, airtemperature, air pressure, relative humidity, rainfall, evaporation and sunshine. are the parameters investigated in this study. In the thesis, the meteorological data observed are analyzed and discussed together with the airborne dust measured by MP101M Suspended Particulate Beta Gauge Monitor at Ovacik Gold Mine. In this study, the most significant meteorological parameter affecting airborne dust concentration is determined as air temperature. In this study, it is also determined through airborne dust measurements that neither the short-term limit nor the long-term limit has been exceeded. Therefore, the airborne dust concentrations at Ovacik Gold Mine comply with the Turkish Air Quality Control Regulation.

Feinstaub kleiner 2,5 Mikrometer (PM2,5) ist ein neuer Parameter zur Beurteilung der Luftqualität. Ziel- und Grenzwerte für PM2,5 wurden mit der Novellierung der EU-Luftqualitätsrichtlinie 2008 zusätzlich zu denen für Feinstaub kleiner 10 Mikrometer (PM10) festgelegt. Die größten sächsischen Quellen für PM2,5 sind Straßenverkehr und Kleinfeuerungsanlagen für feste Brennstoffe. Industrie und Landwirtschaft sind weitere Quellen. Der Anteil von PM2,5 am PM10 ist bei den Jahresmittelwerten stabil. Deshalb können für die Beurteilung der Luftqualität an geringer belasteten Orten auch die bisher gemessenen PM10-Daten mit herangezogen werden. Der ab 2015 geltende Grenzwert für PM2,5 ist in Sachsen bisher nicht überschritten worden. Die erstmals für die ganze Fläche Sachsens modellierte Belastung hat für die Prognosejahre 2015 und 2020 ebenfalls keine Hinweise auf Grenzwertüberschreitungen ergeben. Das nationale Ziel für die Minderung der durchschnittlichen Exposition der Bevölkerung bis 2020 stellt noch einmal höhere Anforderungen an die Luftqualität.

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A large number of studies have shown that both temperature and air pollution (eg, particulate matter and ozone) are associated with health outcomes. So far, it has received limited attention whether air pollution and temperature interact to affect health outcomes. A few studies have examined interactive effects between temperature and air pollution, but produced conflicting results. This thesis aimed to examine whether air pollution (including ozone and particulate matter) and temperature interacted to affect health outcomes in Brisbane, Australia and 95 large US communities. In order to examine the consistency across different cities and different countries, we used two datasets to examine interactive effects of temperature and air pollution. One dataset was collected in Brisbane City, Australia, during 1996-2000. The dataset included air pollution (PM10, ozone and nitrogen dioxide), weather conditions (minimum temperature, maximum temperature, relative humidity and rainfall) and different health outcomes. Another dataset was collected from the 95 large US communities, which included air pollution (ozone was used in the thesis), weather conditions (maximum temperature and dew point temperature) and mortality (all non-external cause mortality and cardiorespiratory mortality). Firstly, we used three parallel time-series models to examine whether maximum temperature modified PM10 effects on cardiovascular hospital admissions (CHA), respiratory hospital admissions (RHA), cardiovascular emergency visits (CEV), respiratory emergency visits (REV), cardiovascular mortality (CM) and non-external cause mortality (NECM), at lags of 0-2 days in Brisbane. We used a Poisson generalized additive model (GAM) to fit a bivariate model to explore joint response surfaces of both maximum temperature and particulate matter less than 10 μm in diameter (PM10) on individual health outcomes at each lag. Results show that temperature and PM10 interacted to affect different health outcomes at various lags. Then, we separately fitted non-stratification and stratification GAM models to quantify the interactive effects. In the non-stratification model, we examined the interactive effects by including a pointwise product for both temperature and the pollutant. In the stratification model, we categorized temperature into two levels using different cut-offs and then included an interactive term for both pollutant and temperature. Results show that maximum temperature significantly and positively modified the associations of PM10 with RHA, CEV, REV, CM and NECM at various lags, but not for CHA. Then, we used the above Poisson regression models to examine whether PM10 modified the associations of minimum temperature with CHA, RHA, CEV, REV, CM and NECM at lags of 0-2 days. In this part, we categorized PM10 into two levels using the mean as cut-off to fit the stratification model. The results show that PM10 significantly modified the effects of temperature on CHA, RHA, CM and NECM at various lags. The enhanced adverse temperature effects were found at higher levels of PM10, but there was no clear evidence for synergistic effects on CEV and REV at various lags. Three parallel models produced similar results, which strengthened the validity of these findings. Thirdly, we examined whether there were the interactive effects between maximum temperature and ozone on NECM in individual communities between April and October, 1987-2000, using the data of 60 eastern US communities from the National Morbidity, Mortality, and Air Pollution Study (NMMAPS). We divided these communities into two regions (northeast and southeast) according to the NMMAPS study. We first used the bivariate model to examine the joint effects between temperature and ozone on NECM in each community, and then fit a stratification model in each community by categorizing temperature into three levels. After that, we used Bayesian meta-analysis to estimate overall effects across regions and temperature levels from the stratification model. The bivariate model shows that temperature obviously modified ozone effects in most of the northeast communities, but the trend was not obviously in the southeast region. Bayesian meta-analysis shows that in the northeast region, a 10-ppb increment in ozone was associated with 2.2% (95% posterior interval [PI]: 1.2%, 3.1 %), 3.1% (95% PI: 2.2%, 3.8 %) and 6.2 % (95% PI: 4.8%, 7.6 %) increase in mortality for low, moderate and high temperature levels, respectively, while in the southeast region, a 10-ppb increment in ozone was associated with 1.1% (95% PI: -1.1%, 3.2 %), 1.5% (95% PI: 0.2%, 2.8%) and 1.3% (95% PI: -0.3%, 3.0 %) increase in mortality. In addition, we examined whether temperature modified ozone effects on cardiovascular mortality in 95 large US communities between May and October, 1987-2000 using the same models as the above. We divided the communities into 7 regions according to the NMMAPS study (Northeast, Industrial Midwest, Upper Midwest, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest and Southern California). The bivariate model shows that temperature modified ozone effects in most of the communities in the northern regions (Northeast, Industrial Midwest, Upper Midwest, Northwest), but such modification was not obvious in the southern regions (Southeast, Southwest and Southern California). Bayesian meta-analysis shows that temperature significantly modified ozone effects in the Northeast, Industrial Midwest and Northwest regions, but not significant in Upper Midwest, Southeast, Southwest and Southern California. Nationally, temperature marginally positively modified ozone effects on cardiovascular mortality. A 10-ppb increment in ozone was associated with 0.4% (95% posterior interval [PI]: -0.2, 0.9 %), 0.3% (95% PI: -0.3%, 1.0%) and 1.6% (95% PI: 4.8%, 7.6%) increase in mortality for low, moderate and high temperature levels, respectively. The difference of overall effects between high and low temperature levels was 1.3% (95% PI: - 0.4%, 2.9%) in the 95 communities. Finally, we examined whether ozone modified the association between maximum temperature and cardiovascular mortality in 60 large eastern US communities during the warmer days, 1987-2000. The communities were divided into the northeast and southeast regions. We restricted the analyses to the warmer days when temperature was equal to or higher than the median in each community throughout the study period. We fitted a bivariate model to explore the joint effects between temperature and ozone on cardiovascular mortality in individual communities and results show that in general, ozone positively modified the association between temperature and mortality in the northeast region, but such modification was not obvious in the southeast region. Because temperature effects on mortality might partly intermediate by ozone, we divided the dataset into four equal subsets using quartiles as cut-offs. Then, we fitted a parametric model to examine the associations between temperature and mortality across different levels of ozone using the subsets. Results show that the higher the ozone concentrations, the stronger the temperature-mortality associations in the northeast region. However, such a trend was not obvious in the southeast region. Overall, this study found strong evidence that temperature and air pollution interacted to affect health outcomes. PM10 and temperature interacted to affect different health outcomes at various lags in Brisbane, Australia. Temperature and ozone also interacted to affect NECM and CM in US communities and such modification varied considerably across different regions. The symmetric modification between temperature and air pollution was observed in the study. This implies that it is considerably important to evaluate the interactive effect while estimating temperature or air pollution effects and further investigate reasons behind the regional variability.

Plant residues added to soil are a source of nutrients for plants and soil organisms and increase soil organic matter which has an important role in improving soil structure and fertility, hence maintaining soil quality for sustainable agriculture. In order to utilize plant residues for increasing soil organic matter more effectively, it is necessary to understand the mechanisms of plant residue decomposition. Soil organic matter decomposition is influenced by several factors such as plant residue quality, temperature, water availability, soil structure and soil texture, particularly clay content. The interaction of clay and decomposition of organic matter has been studied in the past. Nevertheless, many studies investigated this interaction in natural soil or under field conditions over long periods of time. Variation in environmental factors may influence the interaction of clay and decomposition of organic matter, thus in most previous studies their effect cannot be separated from the direct effect of clay on decomposition. To study the direct effect of clay on organic matter decomposition, four experiments with different objectives were carried out using isolated natural clay, under controlled conditions (e.g. temperature and organic matter input) and a short incubation period (approximately one month). All experiments were carried out using a sand matrix to which different clay types, clay fractions (natural or with iron oxide partially removed) or clay concentrations were added together with mature wheat straw (C/N 122 in most experiments, except Experiment 2 where the wheat straw had a C/N of 18) and a microbial inoculum. To investigate the effect of clay type, two clay types were added. They were isolated from Wiesenboden (W) and Red Brown Earth (RBE) soil. Clay types from both soils contained kaolinite and illite, but smectite only occurred in W clay. Iron oxide is thought to be important for the binding of organic matter to clay, therefore two clay fractions were used, the clay with native iron oxide (natural clay) and clay from which iron oxide was partially removed by citrate-dithionite-bicarbonate treatment (citrate-dithionite clay, CD clay). The following parameters were measured: pH, water loss, respiration rate, microbial community structure using phospholipid fatty acid analysis and, in some experiments, particulate organic matter. In all experiments, the water content of the substrate mixes was adjusted only at the start; water loss was greatest in the control and decreased with increasing clay content. The aim of the first experiment was to study the effect of the concentration of W clay on decomposition of wheat residues. Respiration (i.e. decomposition of the wheat straw) was affected by clay in two ways (i) decreased decomposition, thus protection of organic matter, in the initial phase at all concentrations (5, 10, 20 and 40%) and throughout the incubation period at ≤ 20% clay, and (ii) greater water retention at higher clay concentration particularly 40% clay that allowed maintenance of higher respiration rates towards the end of incubation. Generally, clay concentration had an effect on microbial community structure but not on microbial biomass. The effect of clay concentration was also investigated in the second experiment, but using RBE clay and a narrower range of concentrations (0, 2.5, 5, 10 and 20% clay) than in the first experiment with W clay. The wheat residue used in this experiment had a lower C/N ratio compared to the other three experiments (C/N 18 compared to 122). In contrast to the first experiment, cumulative respiration of the clay treatments was greater than that of control throughout the incubation, thus clay increased rather than decreased decomposition. This may be due to the properties of the wheat residue used in this experiment which contained more water-soluble compounds, the diffusion of which would be enhanced in treatments with clay compared to the control due to their higher water availability. However, considering only the treatments with added clay, cumulative respiration followed the same pattern as in the first experiment, with highest cumulative respiration at 20% clay. In general, microbial community structure, microbial biomass and microbial groups (i.e. bacterial and fungal fatty acids) were affected by the presence of clay and sampling time, but there was no clear relationship between these factors and the richness and diversity of the microbial community. The aim of the third experiment was to determine the effect of clay concentration (5 and 40% of W clay) and fraction (natural or citrate-dithionite clay) on decomposition of wheat straw and microbial community structure. Clay fraction and concentration strongly affected the respiration rate and microbial community structure as well as microbial biomass but not the concentration of particulate organic matter (POM). Compared to the control, partial removal of iron oxide strongly increased decomposition at both concentrations whereas clay with iron oxides reduced the decomposition. Microbial community structure was affected by clay fractions, particularly at 40% clay. The aim of the fourth experiment was to determine the effect of clay fraction (natural and citrate-dithionite clay) and clay type (W clay or RBE clay) at 5% clay on decomposition of wheat straw and microbial community structure. Clay type and the partial removal of iron oxide had a significant effect on the decomposition rate but did not affect POM concentration. As in the third experiment, partial removal of iron oxide increased respiration rate, the effect was less pronounced in RBE clay than in W clay. Clay type and fraction strongly affected microbial community structure. In conclusion, the experiments showed that native clay generally reduces organic matter decomposition by binding and occlusion. The importance of iron oxide for the protective effect of clay on organic matter decomposition was shown by the fact that partial removal of iron oxide strongly increased decomposition rate compared to the native clay. The two clay types differed in their effect. The W clay containing smectite protects organic matter to a greater extent than RBE clay with predominantly illite and kaolinite due to its higher surface area and CEC that lead to binding and or occlusion. The results also showed that although clay reduces organic matter decomposition under optimal water availability, this effect can be reversed as the substrates dry out because the greater water retention of substrates with clay concentrations > 10% compared to the pure sand matrix allows maintenance of a greater microbial activity. Clay type, fraction and concentration affected microbial community structure via their effect on organic matter and water availability. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1521949 / Thesis (M.Ag.Sc.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Earth and Environment Science, 2010

Thesis (M.S.)--Miami University, Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-118).

Η ανάπτυξη των μεγαλουπόλεων συνεπάγεται τεράστιες εκπομπές αιωρούμενων σωματιδίων και άλλων ρυπαντών ουσιών στην ατμόσφαιρα, το οποίο οδηγεί σε πολύ μεγάλη υποβάθμιση της ποιότητας του ατμοσφαιρικού τους αέρα. Η καταγραφή και μελέτη όλων αυτών των αέριων ρυπαντών βελτιώνει σημαντικά τη γνώση μας, προκειμένου να καταλάβουμε αλλά και να διαχειριστούμε σωστά τέτοιου είδους σοβαρά περιβαλλοντικά προβλήματα. Στην παρούσα εργασία επεξεργαζόμαστε στατιστικά τα δεδομένα από 16 σταθμούς καταγραφής ατμοσφαιρικών ρύπων στην περιοχή της Αθήνας. Πιο συγκεκριμένα διαθέτουμε τις συγκεντρώσεις των αιωρούμενων σωματιδίων PM10 , του μονοξειδίου και διοξειδίου του αζώτου , του όζοντος , του μονοξειδίου του άνθρακα και του διοξειδίου του θείου για το έτος 2006, αλλά και τα μετεωρολογικά δεδομένα για το συγκεκριμένο έτος. Αναπαριστούμε γραφικά τις μέσες ημερήσιες αλλά και μηνιαίες τιμές για καθένα από τους παραπάνω ρύπους, για όλους τους σταθμούς στους οποίους μετρώνται οι συγκεντρώσεις τους και εξάγουμε συμπεράσματα για τις ώρες της ημέρας, αλλά και για το ποιούς μήνες, έχω τις μέγιστες τιμές για τον κάθε ρύπο. Ακόμα εξάγουμε συμπεράσματα σχετικά με τη συχνότητα εμφάνισης υπερβάσεων των θεσμοθετημένων ορίων , καθενός εκ των πιο πάνω ρυπαντών. Εφαρμόζουμε την μέθοδο της ανάλυσης γραμμικής παλινδρόμησης, με την οποία διαπιστώνουμε με ποιούς από τους υπόλοιπους ατμοσφαιρικούς ρύπους και με ποιες μετεωρολογικές παραμέτρους συσχετίζονται γραμμικά τα αιωρούμενα σωματίδια ενώ παρατηρούμε κάποια ετερογένεια ανάμεσα στους σταθμούς μέτρησής τους. Τέλος μέσω της διαδικασίας της ετεροσυσχέτισης των χρονοσειρών των ατμοσφαιρικών ρύπων των αιωρούμενων σωματιδίων, του μονοξειδίου του άνθρακα και του διοξειδίου του αζώτου μεταξύ των σταθμών καταγραφής τους, εξάγουμε συμπεράσματα σχετικά με τη συμπεριφορά των αντίστοιχων χρονοσειρών, δηλαδή το μέγεθος της σχέσης ανάμεσα στις δύο σειρές και τη χρονική απόσταση ανάμεσα στη θέση της μέγιστης ισοδυναμίας τους. / The development of big cities resulted in large emissions of suspended particulate matter (PM) and other pollutants in the atmosphere, which link to air quality deterioration. Monitoring and studying air pollutants improves our knowledge in order to understand and manage such significant environmental problems. In the present work, we perform statistics in the data of the 16 monitoring stations in Athens area. More specifically our data consists of the concentrations of PM10, NO, NO2, O3, SO2 and CO, as well as the meteorological data of the year 2006. We graphically represent mean daily and monthly values of each air pollutant and make appropriate conclusions. Moreover we deal with the exceedances of these air pollutants concentrations. We perform linear regression analysis in order to find out, which of the rest pollutants and meteorological data, PM10 have the best linear line fit with. We find enough differences between the monitoring stations. Finally through the cross correlation procedures of the time series of PM10, CO and NO2 between the monitoring stations, we make conclusions regarding the behavior of the time series as concerning the type of the relationship between them and the time distance between their maximum equivalence.

Οι επιπτώσεις των αιωρουμένων σωματιδίων στην υγεία τεκμηριώνονται σε σειρά μελετών (π.χ. Griffiths, 2011). Κατά τα τελευταία χρόνια επίσης έχουν μελετηθεί οι πηγές των αιωρουμένων σωματιδίων οι οποίες διαφέρουν ανάλογα με τον τόπο, την εποχή καθώς και τις ανθρώπινες δραστηριότητες (π.χ. Koçak et al, 2011; Schleicher et al, 2011; Song and Gao, 2011). Οι άνθρωποι εκτίθενται στα αιωρούμενα σωματίδια όχι μόνο κατά την παραμονή τους σε εξωτερικούς χώρους αλλά και σε εσωτερικούς. Η έκθεση αυτή είναι και η σημαντικότερη, δεδομένου ότι η πλειοψηφία των ανθρώπων βρίσκεται το μεγαλύτερο διάστημα της ημέρας σε εσωτερικούς χώρους. Η ποιότητα εσωτερικού αέρα ως προς τα αιωρούμενα σωματίδια έχει μελετηθεί σε κατοικίες (π.χ. Massey et al, 2012), γυμναστήρια (π.χ. Braniš et al, 2011), μέσα μαζικής μεταφοράς (π.χ. Kim et al, 2011) κ.λ.π. Στην εργασία θα γίνει ανασκόπιση και κριτική ανάλυση της πρόσφατης διεθνούς επιστημονικής βιβλιογραφίας που αφορά στη μελέτη των αιωρουμένων σωματιδίων στο εσωτερικό κτιρίων διαφόρων τύπων χρήσης. Η εργασία θα εστιάσει στη βιβλιογραφική ανασκόπηση των πηγών των αιωρουμένων σωματιδίων σε εσωτερικούς χώρους καθώς και των παραγόντων που επηρεάζουν τις συγκεντρώσεις τους. Θα διερευνηθεί η σχέση μεταξύ συγκεντρώσεων αιωρουμένων σωματιδίων στους χώρους και ταυτοχρόνως στο εξωτερικό περιβάλλον ως συνάρτηση των επικρατουσών κλιματολογικών συνθηκών. Θα δοθεί έμφαση στην ανάλυση των διαφόρων ερευνητικών αποτελεσμάτων και θα επιχειρηθεί η μεταξύ τους σύνδεση. Θα δοθεί ιδιαιτέρως έμφαση στη διερεύνηση και συγκριτική αξιολόγηση των μεθόδων που χρησιμοποιήθηκαν για την εξαγωγή των αποτελεσμάτων και στη σύγκριση και αντιπαραβολή των αποτελεσμάτων αυτών. Θα επιχειρηθεί επίσης και κριτική θεώρηση των στόχων της μεθοδολογίας, των αποτελεσμάτων και των συμπερασμάτων όσον αφορά στις επιπτώσεις σε διάφορους επιστημονικούς τομείς. / The impact of particulate matters (PM) on health is documented in a series of studies (e.g. Griffiths, 2011). Also the sources of PM have been studied recently. These differ, depenting on the location, the season and the type of human activities. (e.g. Kocak et al, 2011; Schleicher et al,2011; Song and Gao, 2011). Humans are exposed to PM not only outdoors but also in indoor spaces. This indoor exposure has a more important impact, since the majority of the population spend most of their time indoors. The indoor air quality (IAQ) with respect to PM has been studied in residential buildings (e.g. Massey et al, 2012), sports halls (e.g. Branis et al, 2011), public transportation means (e.g. Kim et al, 2011), etc. This work reviews and analyses the recent international scientific literature related to PM in indoor spaces of various uses. It focuses on the review of indoor PM sources and on the parameters affenting their concentrations. The relation between indoor and outdoor PM concentrations as a funtion of the weather conditions will also be studied. Emphasis willbe given on the analysis and synthesis of the variouw research results. Acomparative evaluation of the methods used will be performed. Also the aims of the methodology and the conclusions regarding their impact on various scientific fields will be critically analysed.

Accurate models of aerosol transformation including partitioning between the gas- and particle-phase are needed for estimating their effects on climate and air quality. In this thesis, the process of partitioning between phases and its determining factors are introduced and investigated. Three studies assess: the accuracy of estimation methods for aerosol component volatility and its effect on particulate concentration and composition; the consistency of different solutions to models of particle-phase diffusion; and, a method to analytically solve particle-phase diffusion. These studies contribute to the ongoing effort of improving aerosol models, such that their wide-ranging effects can be accurately estimated.