With the continued population growth and the blurring of the urban and rural interface, air quality impacts associated with agricultural particle-producing processes are becoming increasingly important. There is a lack of emission rate data from these source types and no prescribed measurement technique available to the agricultural and regulatory communities. One technique that has shown promise is combining field measurements with inverse modeling. This approach was used herein to examine particulate emissions from an almond harvesting operation, a cotton ginning facility, and comparative emissions from conservation versus conventional tillage practices. EPAapproved models ISCST3 and AERMOD were used with AirMetrics samplers. With error representing the standard deviation for all values, for ISCST3, the almond harvesting operation found PM10 emissions for shaking were 3.4 kilograms per hectare; PM2.5, PM10, and TSP emissions for sweeping were 0.81 ± 0.76, 4.8 ± 3.7, and 7.5 ± 5.1 kg ha-1, respectively; PM2.5, PM10, and TSP emissions for pickup were 1.7 ± 1.5, 6.1 ± iii 1.9, and 10.3 ± 3.8 kg ha-1, respectively. Using AERMOD, the almond harvesting operation found PM10 emissions for shaking were 4.4 kg ha-1; PM2.5, PM10, and TSP emissions for sweeping were 1.3 ± 1.5, 8.3 ± 9.4, and 27.0 ± 41.2 kg ha-1, respectively; PM2.5, PM10, and TSP emissions for pickup were 2.7 ± 1.3, 15.7 ± 14.1, and 42.3 ± 20.7 kg ha-1, respectively. PM2.5, PM10, and TSP emissions from the cotton gin were determined to be 1.7 ± 1.4, 14.3 ± 17.0, and 27.9 ± 41.1 g s-1 using ISCST3 and 0.9 ± 0.9, 10.5 ± 18.8, and 43.0 ± 79.9 g s-1 using AERMOD, respectively. ISCST3 emission rates for the combined tillage operations for PM2.5, PM10, and TSP were 0.15 ± 0.24, 0.44 ± 0.17, and 1.4 kg acre-1, while AERMOD rates were 0.17 ± 0.27, 0.66 ± 0.25, and 2.1 kg acre-1, respectively. ISCST3 emissions for the conventional tillage operations for PM2.5, PM10, and TSP were 0.47 ± 2.1, 1.1 ± 0.23, and 3.4 kg acre-1, and the AERMOD rates were 0.18 ± 0.26, 1.2 ± 0.24, and 5.1 kg acre-1, respectively.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-1166 |
| Date | 01 December 2008 |
| Creators | Jones, Derek |
| Publisher | DigitalCommons@USU |
| Source Sets | Utah State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | All Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact Andrew Wesolek (andrew.wesolek@usu.edu). |
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