Abstract
Toxic metals as arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), nickel (Ni), and lead (Pb) exist in the atmosphere as particulate matter components. Their concentration levels in the European Union (EU) are regulated by European legislation, which sets target and limit values as annual means, and by the World Health Organization (WHO) that defines guidelines and reference values for those metal elements. Modelling tools are recommended to support air quality assessment regarding the toxic metals; however, few studies have been performed and those assessments rely on discrete measurements or field campaigns. This study aims to evaluate the capability of air quality modelling tools to verify the legislation compliance concerning the atmospheric levels of toxic elements and to identify the main challenges and limitations of using a modelling assessment approach for regulatory purposes, as a complement to monitoring. The CAMx air quality model was adapted and applied over Porto and Lisbon urban regions in Portugal at 5 × 5-km2 and 1 × 1-km2 horizontal resolution for the year 2015, and the results were analysed and compared with the few measurements available in three locations. The comparison between modelled and measured data revealed an overestimation of the model, although annual averages are much lower than the regulated standards. The comparison of the 5-km and 1-km resolutions’ results indicates that a higher resolution does not necessarily imply a better performance, pointing out uncertainties in emissions and the need to better describe the magnitude and spatial allocation of toxic metal emissions. This work highlighted that an increase of the spatial and temporal coverage of monitoring sites would allow to improve the model design, contribute to a better knowledge on toxic metals atmospheric emission sources and to increase the capacity of models to simulate atmospheric particulate species of health concern.
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Funding
This work was supported by the European Union’s LIFE Programme in the framework of the Index-Air LIFE15 ENV/PT/000674 project. This work reflects only the authors’ view and EASME is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains. The project FUTURAR (PTDC/AAG-MAA/2569/2014-POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016752) was funded by FEDER, through COMPETE2020-Programa Operacional Competitividade e Internacionalização (POCI), and by national funds (OE), through FCT/MCTES. The financial support was from CESAM (UID/AMB/50017/2019+UIDB/50017/2020) and C2TN (UID/Multi/04349/2019), to FCT/MCTES through national funds, and the co-funding by the FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement and Compete 2020. J. Ferreira is funded by national funds (OE), through FCT–Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, I.P., in the scope of the framework contract foreseen in the numbers 4, 5 and 6 of the article 23, of the Decree-Law 57/2016, of August 29, changed by Law 57/2017, of July 19.
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Ferreira, J., Lopes, D., Rafael, S. et al. Modelling air quality levels of regulated metals: limitations and challenges. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 33916–33928 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09645-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-09645-9