Despite the industrial decline, air pollution continues to be a major issue in Romanian cities. As in many other urban areas, in Iasi city the traffic is one of the main sources of air pollution which has a high environmental impact, also exposing population's health to a high risk. The study focuses on the small scale examining the spatial and temporal variability of air pollution in a very important and frequently circulated crossroad, Podu de Piatra. Using various data from air pollution monitoring stations and local meteorological data, both, measurements and field observations, the study assesses the relation between traffic intensity, the presence of pollutants and the exposure of vulnerable population in an area that is one of the hot-spots of air pollution in Iasi. The objective is to apply a spatial exposure assessment model which combines proximity-based and dispersion models in order to estimate the overall impact of transport on air pollution. The GIS allows to incorporate spatial data, manage it, analyse it, and answer spatial questions. The major outcomes of this study are: the air circulation contributes to the increase of relative pollutant concentration on different sides of the streets; monitoring stations has difficulties to estimate with precision the wind speed variation; the lowest estimation of NOx have been obtained along the street in 19 th April at 6 AM when the wind is perpendicular to the street axis, while the highest was record on 20 th April at 18 PM when the wind is parallel to the street axis; to help assessing the representativeness of data from national air quality system.
Inventory and monitoring of total organic carbon stock (TOC) it's an issue of actuality in the context of breaking into the atmosphere an alarming quantity of CO2 result of human activities. Management and sustainable management of forest and agricultural ecosystems can have a positive influence on maintaining optimal stock of carbon sequestered. A case study achieved in the Humor catchment reveals that changing the land's utility means important modifications in the quantity of the carbon organic in ecosystems. The transition from forest biomass to herbaceous biomass or crops it means a considerable reduction of the organic carbon. Other important changes are occurring in soil trough the transformation of forest humus in grassland humus and cropland. The most common changes of intended land use were: from the forest to grassland, from the forest to arable, from the forest to urban use, from the grassland to arable, from the grassland to urban use, and less, from the grassland to forest or from the arable to grassland. In case of deforestation or fire, the soil organic carbon (SOC) is reduced by an amount equivalent to biomass missing. As a result of the insect attack, the living biomass turns into deadwood and the total organic carbon (TOC) will persist for a while even after decomposition of the wood, which will be incorporated into the forest soil. Litter and soil organic carbon last longer after fire or deforestation, but in time it is eroded either reshuffled or mineralized. The calculation of the stock of organic carbon sequestered it was achieved by quantitative estimation methods in the biomass, soil, deadwood and litter, depending on the type of land use. In the case of forest ecosystems, carbon stock it depends on the species composition of the forest, the trees age and the density of the trees. The study was conducted to demonstrate by calculations that changes in the land use pattern lead to increases and decreases in the carbon stock segregated in forest ecosystems. The used methodology correlates Corine Land Cover data with the carbon stock estimations from different land use categories, highlighting changes from one historical period to another.
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