Airsheds sampling

Organic compounds, natural, fossil or anthropogenic, can be used to provide a chemical mass balance for atmospheric particles and a receptor model was developed that relates source contributions to mass concentrations in airborne fine particles. The approach uses organic compound distributions in both source and ambient samples to determine source contributions to the airborne particulate matter. This method was validated for southern California and is being applied in numerous other airsheds. ... 

The second requirement is that components unique to specific aerosol sources affecting the ambient sample are measured, The precise chemical species will depend on the sources in the airshed under consideration. Most studies will require measurement of certain "basic" particulate matter species including ions, elements, and organic and inorganic carbon,... 

Step 2 required identification of source impacts by airshed modeling. Wind speed, direction, mixing height, and emission data bases designed to represent conditions on PACS sampling days were used to insure that the CMB impact estimates could be directly compared to model predictions for each sampllne site. 

The gradient approach requires a great deal to be known about the landscape of the watershed, airshed, or other division of the area under consideration. Ideally, it is nice to have data on land use, geology, the hydrology, soil types, sediment composition, types of contaminants, the history of disturbance, and other information available when deciding a sampling plan. These data may not be available, and this uncertainty should be reported. 

Ambient air was concurrently sampled so that contaminants present in the urban airshed of our apiary could be identified and accounted for in all other samples. 

Environmental studies [17] of urban airsheds in several areas of the country have shown that high levels of atmospheric vanadium oxide are associated with industrialized areas, especially those areas where fossil fuels are burned or where vanadate steel is being produced. In addition, vanadium has been shown to exhibit increased tissue levels in fish and other marine animals associated with oil rigs in the Santa Barbara basin of the United States [18]. Blotcky et al. [19] determined the vanadium content in shrimp, crab, and oyster from four ocean sites off and near Galveston Island, Texas. They found that the vanadium content was greater in marine biological samples taken in waters near industrialized areas as compared to samples taken in waters near the nonindustrialized sections. Speciation of the vanadium is very important since the two oxidation states, i.e., IV or V, have different nutritional and toxic properties [14]. Orvini et al. [20] applied a preirradiation speciation method to freshwaters from the Italian Ticino and Po rivers and found out that vanadium was present in various tetravalent cationic and pentavalent anionic as well as in natural complexed forms. 

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