Poor regional air quality in some states across the US cotton belt has resulted in
increased pressure on agricultural sources of particulate matter (PM) from air pollution
regulators. Moreover, inaccurate emission factors used in the calculation of annual
emissions inventories led to the identification of cotton harvesting as a significant source
of PM10 in California and Arizona. As a result, cotton growers in these states are now
required to obtain air quality permits and submit management practice plans detailing
the actions taken by the producer to reduce fugitive PM emissions from field operations.
The objective of this work was to develop accurate PM emission factors for cotton
harvesting in terms of total suspended particulate (TSP), PM10, and PM2.5.
Two protocols were developed and used to develop PM emission factors from
cotton harvesting operations on three farms in Texas during 2006 and 2007. Protocol
one utilized TSP concentrations measured downwind of harvesting operations with
meteorological data measured onsite in a dispersion model to back-calculate TSP
emission flux values. Flux values, determined with the regulatory dispersion models
ISCST3 and AERMOD, were converted to emission factors and corrected with results
from particle size distribution (PSD) analyses to report emission factors in terms of PM10
and PM2.5. Emission factors were developed for two-row (John Deere 9910) and sixrow
(John Deere 9996) cotton pickers with protocol one. The uncertainty associated
with the emission factors developed through protocol one resulted in no significant
difference between the emission factors for the two machines. Under the second protocol, emission concentrations were measured onboard the
six-row cotton picker as the machine harvested cotton. PM10 and PM2.5 emission factors
were developed from TSP emission concentration measurements converted to emission
rates using the results of PSD analysis. The total TSP, PM10, and PM2.5 emission factors
resulting from the source measurement protocol are 1.64 ± 0.37, 0.55 ± 0.12, and 1.58E-
03 ± 4.5E-04 kg/ha, respectively. These emission factors contain the lowest uncertainty
and highest level of precision of any cotton harvesting PM emission factors ever
developed. Thus, the emission factors developed through the source sampling protocol
are recommended for regulatory use.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2650 |
| Date | 15 May 2009 |
| Creators | Wanjura, John David |
| Contributors | Parnell, Calvin |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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