Characterising Seasonal Variations of Ambient Pm2.5 and Pm10 Mass Concentrations Based on Urban Area Monitoring Data in Balikesir, Turkey

Abstract

Epidemiological studies have shown a significant impact of fine particles below 10 mm (PM10) on human health. Due to the increasing interest for the fine particles (PM2.5) the measurement programme of the network has been extended to include PM2.5 measurements into the measurement programme at several countries. In this work, Characterising seasonal variations of mass concentration of fine (PM2.5) and coarse (PM2.5-10) during October 2009 to October 2010 has been investigated. A total of 337 samplers were collected during this study period using Anderson Dichotomous sampler. The average mass concentration of PM2.5 and PM2.5-10 and PM10 was found as 31.07 mu g/m(3), 15.52 mu g/m(3) and 46.53 mu g/m(3) respectively. The concentration of PM2.5, and PM10 were higher in heating seasons than in summer time. As expected, the low temperature is associated with an increase in the number of episodic events. This is a result of the extensive use of fuel during winter-time for heating purposes and also due to stagnant air masses formed because of low temperature and low wind speed over the study area.