Perceived annoyance from environmental odors and association with atmospheric ammonia levels in non-urban residential communities: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

ObjectiveOdor exposure is an environmental stressor that is responsible of many citizens complains about air pollution in non-urban areas. However, information about the exposure-response relation is scarce. One of the main challenges is to identify a measurable compound that can be related with odor annoyance responses. We investigated the association between regional and temporal variation of ammonia (NH3) concentrations in five Danish non-urban regions and environmental odor annoyance as perceived by the local residents.MethodsA cross-sectional study where NH3 concentration was obtained from the national air quality monitoring program and from emission-dispersion modelling, and odor pollution perception from questionnaires. The exposure-response model was a sigmoid model. Linear regression analyses were used to estimate the model constants after equation transformations. The model was validated using leave-one-out cross validation (LOOCV) statistical method.ResultsAbout 45% of the respondents were annoyed by odor pollution at their residential areas. The perceived odor was characterized by all respondents as animal waste odor. The exposure-annoyance sigmoid model showed that the prevalence of odor annoyance was significantly associated with NH3 concentrations (measured and estimated) at the local air quality monitoring stations (p < 0.01,R2 = 0.99; and p < 0.05,R2 = 0.93; respectively). Prediction errors were below 5.1% and 20% respectively. The seasonal pattern of odor perception was associated with the seasonal variation in NH3 concentrations (p < 0.001, adjusted R2 = 0.68).ConclusionThe results suggest that atmospheric NH3 levels at local air quality stations could be used as indicators of prevalence of odor annoyance in non-urban residential communities.

Characteristics of pollutant gas releases from swine, dairy, beef, and layer manure, and municipal wastewater

“…Excessive quantities of NH 3 emitted from livestock and poultry farms could have negative impact on environment and ecosystems. Ammonia has also been reported to relate to livestock odor annoyance and health outcomes in residential outdoor environment (Qamaruz-Zaman and Milke, 2012;Blanes-Vidal et al, 2012b, although it is not the main component of odorants. Release of CO 2 can alter the manure surface pH and accelerate NH 3 emission from the manure (Ni et al, 2000).…”

How Can Odors Be Measured? An Overview of Methods and Their Applications

“…In 2012, Blanes-Vidal et al [63] investigated the association between the regional and temporal variation of ammonia concentration in five Danish non-urban regions and environmental odor annoyance perceived by local residents. NH 3 concentration was obtained from air pollution monitoring stations.…”

“…Feature extraction has the purpose of extracting the information relevant for pattern recognition from the sensor array response while the dimensionality reduction stage projects the n-dimensions of the multidimensional dataset onto a few informative and independent axes to simplify data inspection and avoid problems related to redundancy [63]. The resulting low-dimensional projection can be more readily inspected visually: Measurements are points of the discarded plot.…”

Development of a method for the monitoring of odor-causing compounds in atmospheres surrounding wastewater treatment plants

“…Interest in the characterization of individual volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in air has increased over the last decades as their emissions have been associated with environmental effects and several adverse effects on human health . Malodor pollution associated to industrial or animal activities has become an important issue because human tolerance to offensive smells is gradually decreasing . Some VOCs have been related to the perception of odors in environments such as the vicinity of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) or animal facilities .…”