Ben Crawford

Characterization, mapping, and mitigation of mercury vapour emissions from artisanal mining gold shops

Artisanal miners sell their gold to shops that are usually located in the urban core, where the mercury-gold amalgam is burned to evaporate the mercury that was added during ore processing. People living and working near these gold shops are exposed to intermittent and extreme concentrations of mercury vapour. In the urban centres of Segovia, Colombia, and Andacollo, Chile, the average concentrations measured by mobile mercury vapour analyzer transects taken repeatedly over several weeks were 1.26 and 0.338μgm(-3), respectively. By World Health Organization standards, these towns are exposed to significant health hazard, and globally, the millions of miners, as well as non-miners who live near gold shops, are at serious risk of neurological and renal deficits. Measurements taken in Suriname, Ecuador and Peru reveal this to be a widespread phenomenon with unique regional variations and myriad attempts at remediation. Maps of average mercury concentrations show the spatial distribution of the hazard in relation to residential buildings and schools. Measurements from towers show the temporal variability of mercury concentrations, and suggest that large quantities of mercury are available for long-range atmospheric transport. Mercury mapping in Segovia in 2011 suggest a 10% reduction in airborne mercury concentrations over 2010, despite a 30% increase in gold production. This is attributable to the adoption of retorts by miners and regulations banning new processing centres to the rural periphery. This is the first full description of artisanal mining gold shop practices and of the character, quantity, and remediation of mercury emissions within urban mining centres.

Spatial source attribution of measured urban eddy covariance CO2 fluxes

Interpretation of tower-based eddy covariance (EC) carbon dioxide flux (FC) measurements in urban areas is challenging because of the location bias of EC instruments. This bias results from EC point measurements taken above a complex CO2 source/sink surface that is spatially heterogeneous at scales approaching or exceeding those of the turbulent flux source areas. This makes it difficult to accomplish traditional measurement objectives such as calculating spatially unbiased ecosystem-wide cumulative FC totals or objectively comparing FC during different environmental conditions (e.g., day vs. night or seasonal differences). This study uses a multiyear FC dataset measured over a residential area of Vancouver, BC, Canada from a 30-m flux tower in close proximity to a busy traffic intersection on one side. The FC measurements are analyzed using surface geospatial data and turbulent flux source area models to exploit location bias to develop methods to statistically model individual emissions and uptake processes in terms of environmental controls and surface land cover. The empirical relations between controls and measured FC are used to spatially and temporally downscale individual CO2 emissions/uptake processes that are then used to create high-resolution maps (20 m) and calculate ecosystem-wide FC at temporal resolutions of 30 min to 1 year. At this site, the modeled ecosystem-wide annual net FC total is calculated as 6.42 kg C m−2 year−1 with traffic emissions estimated to account for 68.8 % of the total net emissions. Building sources contribute 27.9 %, respiration from soil and vegetation is 5.5 %, respiration from humans 5.0 %, and photosynthesis offsets are −7.2 % of the annual net total. The statistical models developed here are then tested by direct comparison to independent EC measurements using land cover scalings derived from 30-min source area models. Results are also scaled to ecosystem-averaged land cover to compare results to independent emissions/uptake models.

Diurnal Course of Carbon Dioxide Mixing Ratios in the Urban Boundary Layer in Response to Surface Emissions

AbstractObservations of carbon dioxide (CO2) mixing ratios in the urban boundary layer (UBL) are rare, even though there is potential for such measurements to be used to monitor city-scale net CO2 emissions. This work presents a unique dataset of CO2 mixing ratios observed in the UBL above Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, by means of a tethered balloon system over a continuous 24-h summertime period. Vertical profiles of CO2 mixing ratios are found to vary according to UBL thermal structure and mechanical dynamics (development of convective and nocturnal boundary layers, vertical mixing from mechanical turbulence, horizontal advection from land–sea thermal breezes, and vertical entrainment). A box model is applied to quantify net city-scale surface emissions to the UBL volume using the measured rate of change of UBL CO2 mixing ratios and estimated CO2 advection and entrainment fluxes. The diurnal course of city-scale net emissions predicted by the model is similar to simultaneous local-scale eddy-cova...

The urban energy balance of a lightweight low-rise neighborhood in Andacollo, Chile

Worldwide, the majority of rapidly growing neighborhoods are found in the Global South. They often exhibit different building construction and development patterns than the Global North, and urban climate research in many such neighborhoods has to date been sparse. This study presents local-scale observations of net radiation (Q*) and sensible heat flux (QH) from a lightweight low-rise neighborhood in the desert climate of Andacollo, Chile, and compares observations with results from a process-based urban energy-balance model (TUF3D) and a local-scale empirical model (LUMPS) for a 14-day period in autumn 2009. This is a unique neighborhood-climate combination in the urban energy-balance literature, and results show good agreement between observations and models for Q* and QH. The unmeasured latent heat flux (QE) is modeled with an updated version of TUF3D and two versions of LUMPS (a forward and inverse application). Both LUMPS implementations predict slightly higher QE than TUF3D, which may indicate a bias in LUMPS parameters towards mid-latitude, non-desert climates. Overall, the energy balance is dominated by sensible and storage heat fluxes with mean daytime Bowen ratios of 2.57 (observed QH/LUMPS QE)–3.46 (TUF3D). Storage heat flux (ΔQS) is modeled with TUF3D, the empirical objective hysteresis model (OHM), and the inverse LUMPS implementation. Agreement between models is generally good; the OHM-predicted diurnal cycle deviates somewhat relative to the other two models, likely because OHM coefficients are not specified for the roof and wall construction materials found in this neighborhood. New facet-scale and local-scale OHM coefficients are developed based on modeled ΔQS and observed Q*. Coefficients in the empirical models OHM and LUMPS are derived from observations in primarily non-desert climates in European/North American neighborhoods and must be updated as measurements in lightweight low-rise (and other) neighborhoods in various climates become available.