Design of a downscaling method to estimate continuous data from discrete pollen monitoring in Tunisia

Abstract

The study of microorganisms and biological particulate matter that transport passively through air is very important for an understanding of the real quality of air. Such monitoring is essential in several specific areas, such as public health, allergy studies, agronomy, indoor and outdoor conservation, and climate-change impact studies. Choosing the suitable monitoring method is an important step in aerobiological studies, so as to obtain reliable airborne data. In this study, we compare olive pollen data from two of the main air traps used in aerobiology, the Hirst and Cour air samplers, at three Tunisian sampling points, for 2009 to 2011. Moreover, a downscaling method to perform daily Cour air sampler data estimates is designed. While Hirst air samplers can offer daily, and even bi-hourly data, Cour air samplers provide data for longer discrete sampling periods, which limits their usefulness for daily monitoring. Higher quantities of olive pollen capture were generally detected for the Hirst air sampler, and a downscaling method that is developed in this study is used to model these differences. The effectiveness of this downscaling method is demonstrated, which allows the potential use of Cour air sampler data series. These results improve the information that new Cour data and, importantly, historical Cour databases can provide for the understanding of phenological dates, airborne pollination curves, and allergenicity levels of air.

A comprehensive aerobiological study of the airborne pollen in the Irish environment

“…The normal distribution of the data was tested using the Lilliefors test, one variation of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. This test is typically recommended for larger sampler sizes as an alternative to the commonly used Shapiro-Wilks test, while both tests are commonly used in aerobiology (Galán et al, 2014;Grinn-Gofroń et al, 2015;Orlandi et al, 2014;Picornell et al, 2020). These tests showed that the daily data did not follow a normal distribution, even after the logarithmic transformation.…”

Analysis and interpretation of long temporal trends in cumulative temperatures and olive reproductive features using a seasonal trend decomposition procedure

“…The olive pollen sampling activities were carried out using the volumetric method, which is based on the capture of pollen and other biological particles present in the air (International Association for Aerobiology, 2011; Orlandi et al, 2014b). The monitoring traps were located inside or near to olive groves, for the detection of the pollen over wide olive-growing areas.…”

Automatic and Online Pollen Monitoring

“…In case of airborne pollen, the Hirst-type volumetric spore trap [10] is the most widely used sampler in the world [11] and is recommended by the European Aeroallergen Network and European Aeroallergen Society [12]. The Hirst-type volumetric trap determines pollen concentrations continuously, whereas other samplers like the Durham, Cour or Rotorod are either not volumetric or not continuous [13,14,15,16]. …”