The main objective of our research was to compare the airborne particle micromorphology and chemistry in the Brussels environment during agriculture working periods in the surrounding farming region. We used specific methods and instrumentation that are adapted to the climate peculiarities of the Brussels region, the period of investigations (12 months) and the proposed objectives. For the agricultural works we defined the following six periods: before sowing, sowing, after sowing, before harvest, harvest and after harvest. The results indicate a possible temporal correlation between agricultural work periods and airborne particle concentration, micromorphology and chemistry in the Brabant-Brussels region. For wheat and corn plant-growth periods, the average particle size, defined as the area obtained by a planar projection of the particulate, showed important variations in time. For sugar beet and endive, the average area size variations are less important. The roughness and sphericity parameters for the growth periods of the four different plants also showed significant differences. Many of the larger particulates (> 10 microm) are aggregates of even finer particles coated with many still finer ones. The airborne particle chemistry averages (atomic percentage At%), showed that three constituents (Si, S and Fe) dominate all the samples (except for particles 3-10 microm in size, which contain a relatively large percentage of Al). Applying similar investigation methods to study the correlations between airborne particle dynamics in urban zones and the agriculture working periods in their surrounding regions could be of interest to better understand the complexity of the PM problematic.
The results of the Car-Free Sundays in Brussels demonstrate the close relationship between the traffic and the presence of the gaseous pollutants such as NO, NO 2 , CO, CO 2 and O 3 in a traffic environment. The relationship with PM10 and PM2.5 seems to be much more complex. In fact, the PM10 and
We report and analyze data on the PM10 fraction of airborne particles measured at five recording stations in the Brussels region from October 2002 till September 2003. These stations are representative of the various activity sectors of the Brussels urban area. The objective was the determination of the origin of the PM10 particles (particles up to 10 mum) that are recorded in that region in order to follow the EU directives concerning tolerance level of airborne particles concentration. In order to evaluate the impacts of local and external factors that inject solid particles in the atmosphere of Brussels we compared concentration data from working and not working (holidays) periods. Moreover, we also compared concentrations from periods of agricultural activity and rest in the Brabant provinces surrounding the Brussels region for various crop types. The results lead to the conclusion that the impact or urban traffic is rather limited while that of the agricultural activities is important. Moreover, there appears a clear-cut distinction between different types of crops.
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