Major air pollutants in Bursa, Turkey: their levels, temporal changes, interactions, and sources

Abstract

Bursa is one of the largest cities of Turkey and it hosts 17 organized industrial zones. Parallel to the increase in population, rapidly growing energy consumption, and increased numbers of transport vehicles have impacts on the air quality of the city. In this study, regularly calibrated automatic samplers were employed to get the levels of air pollution in Bursa. The concentrations of CH₄ and N-CH₄ as well as the major air pollutants including PM₁₀, PM_2.5, NO, NO₂, NO_x, SO₂, CO, and O₃, were determined for 2016 and 2017 calendar years. Their levels were 1641.62 ± 718.25, 33.11 ± 5.45, 42.10 ± 10.09, 26.41 ± 9.01, 19.47 ± 16.51, 46.73 ± 16.56, 66.23 ± 32.265, 7.60 ± 3.43, 659.397 ± 192.73, and 51.92 ± 25.63 µg/m³ for 2016, respectively. Except for O₃, seasonal concentrations were higher in winter and autumn for both years. O₃, CO, and SO₂ had never exceeded the limit values specified in the regulations yet PM₁₀, PM_2.5, and NO₂ had violated the limits in some days. The ratios of CO/NO_x, SO₂/NO_x, and PM_2.5/PM₁₀ were examined to characterize the emission sources. Generally, domestic and industrial emissions were dominated in the fall and winter seasons, yet traffic emissions were effective in spring and summer seasons. As a result of the correlation process between O_x and NO_x, it was concluded that the most important source of O_x concentrations in winter was NO_x and O₃ was in summer.

Keywords:

• Criteria air pollutants
• oxidant
• meteorological effect
• temporal variation
• source contribution

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank the Nilüfer Municipality for providing the measurement results.