Particulate and Sulfur Dioxide Concentration Measurements in Patras, Greece

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to obtain a better assessment of the Patras, Greece, air quality, in terms of the primary pollutants total suspended particulates (TSPs) and sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ), because limited and short-duration measurements have been conducted in the past. Installation and operation of a mobile air monitoring station at two different locations in the Patras downtown area and one location in the outskirts of the city was undertaken and covered the periods July

Quick and Economic Spatial Assessment of Urban Air Quality

“…The present findings can be verified once more by Yannopoulos and Skokaki's (2003) SO 2 concentration measurements. The measurements had been carried out for extended periods of year at Location 22 (former Location A), as well as at a location between the nearby Locations 12 and 17 (former Location B).…”

“…As shown in Fig. 6, the NE and SW winds prevail during the actual program period with comparable frequencies (Yannopoulos and Skokaki, 2003 Table 7 show that calm or light winds were the most frequent weather conditions during sampling hours. Winds with very low velocity and rather detectable direction constitute suitable conditions for air sampling, since it is possible to define the downwind point for sampling performance.…”

“…10. The SO 2 concentrations monitored at the W boundaries of the University of Patras Campus, a low activity outskirt, were considered equal to the ambient air background levels, which had been measured equal to 5.5 μg m -3 , according to Yannopoulos and Skokaki (2003). As shown in both diagrams of Fig.…”

“…In general, the mixing height over land is low during the morning, evening and night hours daily, when inversion effects occur, and increases significantly during the early afternoon hours (Schnelle and Dey, 2000). An indicator of its daily persistence is the percentage of calm frequency, which is 14% during program period and increases gradually from winter to summertime (Yannopoulos and Skokaki, 2003). Annually, the lowest mixing heights giving the worst dispersion conditions are observed in winter (usually in December), the highest with the best dispersion in summer (usually in July) and moderate values are common during spring and autumn.…”

“…As for many other Mediterranean cities of moderate size and similar activities with Patras and apart of sporadic emissions due to industrial and service enterprises and background pollution due to probable remote sources, air pollution in Patras originates from the classic sources of harbour, traffic and central heating. More details and a thorough review for the actual air quality data for the city of Patras have been given by Yannopoulos and Skokaki (2003), Yannopoulos (2008) Note: Superscript m denotes cloudiness more than ⅜ in the morning-and e in the evening-sampling period. The absence of an index denotes cloudiness less than ⅜ but not clear sky.…”