Roberto Giua

Application of a Lagrangian particle model to the source apportionment for primary macropollutants in Taranto area (South Italy)

A modelling system has been applied to estimate the annual contribution to the total concentrations of different pollutant sources in Taranto, one of the most industrialized areas in Italy. Industrial sources, traffic, domestic heating and harbour emissions have been taken into account. Modelling system includes 3-dimensional meteorological models SWIFT-SURFPRO with the Lagrangian particle dispersion model SPRAY. The air emissions inventory was partially established using measured data, local activity indicators and emission factors. The meteorology was reconstructed by the SWIFT model from the products supplied, for the year 2007,by the national MINNI project. The annual simulation led to the identification of the main emitting sources for primary pollutants such as NOx, SO 2 , PM10, PM2.5 and C 6 H 6 at receptor sites. In addition, a more refined source apportionment was achieved for industrial primary PM10, providing a useful preliminary identification of the main industrial sources emitting dangerous micropollutants, such as POPs and heavy metals.

Application of a photochemical model for the assessment of regional air quality in Southern Italy: procedures and results

A modelling system based on FARM chemical transport model is applied to assess the air quality (AQ) over the Apulia region (Southern Italy) for 2013. The most relevant pollutant sources in the region are a steel plant, the largest in Europe (in the Taranto area), a coal fired power plant, the second most powerful in Italy (in the Brindisi area) and biomass burning for residential heating. Simulation results indicate exceedances for PM10 daily limit value and benzo(a)pyrene (B(a)P) annual limit values occurring in some areas. The evaluation of the model performance has been conducted by using the software DELTA Tool, developed within FAIRMODE to support the application of the EU Air Quality Directive. Results show good performance of the model, with a tendency to underestimate PM10 and O3 levels. These results suggest the use of this modelling strategy for further source apportionment studies, in order to identify the sources that mainly affect air quality and to implement proper emission control strategies.

Automated Collection of Real-Time Alerts of Citizens as a Useful Tool to Continuously Monitor Malodorous Emissions

The evaluation of odor emissions and dispersion is a very arduous topic to face; the real-time monitoring of odor emissions, the identification of chemical components and, with proper certainty, the source of annoyance represent a challenge for stakeholders such as local authorities. The complaints of people, often not systematic and variously distributed, in general do not allow us to quantify the perceived annoyance. Experimental research has been performed to detect and evaluate olfactory annoyance, based on field testing of an innovative monitoring methodology grounded in automatic recording of citizen alerts. It has been applied in Taranto, in the south of Italy where a relevant industrial area is located, by using Odortel® for automated collection of citizen alerts. To evaluate its reliability, the collection system has been integrated with automated samplers, able to sample odorous air in real time, according to the citizen alerts of annoyance and, moreover, with meteorological data (especially the wind direction) and trends in odor marker compounds, recorded by air quality monitoring stations. The results have allowed us, for the first time, to manage annoyance complaints, test their reliability, and obtain information about the distribution and entity of the odor phenomena, such that we were able to identify, with supporting evidence, the source as an oil refinery plant.