title: Simulating the production and dispersion of environmental pollutants in aerosol phase in an urban area of great historical and cultural value.
abstract: Mathematical models were developed to simulate the production and dispersion of aerosol phase atmospheric pollutants which are the main cause of the deterioration of monuments of great historical and cultural value. This work focuses on Particulate Matter (PM) considered the primary cause of monument darkening. Road traffic is the greatest contributor to PM in urban areas. Specific emission and dispersion models were used to study typical urban configurations. The area selected for this study was the city of Florence, a suitable test bench considering the magnitude of architectural heritage together with the remarkable effect of the PM pollution from road traffic. The COPERT model, to calculate emissions, and the street canyon model coupled with the CALINE model, to simulate pollutant dispersion, were used. The PM concentrations estimated by the models were compared to actual PM concentration measurements, as well as related to the trend of some meteorological variables. The results obtained may be defined as very encouraging even the models correlated poorly: the estimated concentration trends as daily averages moderately reproduce the same trends of the measured values.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche and Research Center for Analysis, Monitoring and Minimization Methodologies of Environmental Risk, Università di Catania, Viale A. Doria 6, I-95127, Catania, Italy. vlibrando@unict.it
authors.forename: Vito
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Librando
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tringali
authors.forename: Francesca
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Calastrini
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Gualtieri
mesh_terms: D000336:Aerosols / Q000032:analysis*; D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D007558:Italy; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D052638:Particulate Matter / Q000032:analysis*; D001335:Vehicle Emissions / Q000032:analysis
chemical_list: D000336:Aerosols; D000393:Air Pollutants; D052638:Particulate Matter; D001335:Vehicle Emissions