title: Optimized arrangement of constant ambient air monitoring stations in the Kanto region of Japan.
abstract: Continuous ambient air monitoring systems have been introduced worldwide. However, such monitoring forces autonomous communities to bear a significant financial burden. Thus, it is important to identify pollutant-monitoring stations that are less efficient, while minimizing loss of data quality and mitigating effects on the determination of spatiotemporal trends of pollutants. This study describes a procedure for optimizing a constant ambient air monitoring system in the Kanto region of Japan. Constant ambient air monitoring stations in the area were topologically classified into four groups by cluster analysis and principle component analysis. Then, air pollution characteristics in each area were reviewed using concentration contour maps and average pollution concentrations. We then introduced three simple criteria to reduce the number of monitoring stations: (1) retain the monitoring station if there were similarities between its data and average data of the group to which it belongs; (2) retain the station if its data showed higher concentrations; and (3) retain the station if the monitored concentration levels had an increasing trend. With this procedure, the total number of air monitoring stations in suburban and urban areas was reduced by 36.5%. The introduction of three new types of monitoring stations is proposed, namely, mobile, for local non-methane hydrocarbon pollution, and Ox-prioritized.
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Systems, Institute of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8563, Japan. hcrmh221@ybb.ne.jp.
authors.forename: Shintaro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shirato
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Systems, Institute of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8563, Japan. iizuka@tagen.tohoku.ac.jp.|Research Center for Sustainable Science and Engineering, Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, 2-1-1 Katahira, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Miyagi 980-8577, Japan. iizuka@tagen.tohoku.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Iizuka
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Systems, Institute of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8563, Japan. mizukoshi@med.kindai.ac.jp.|Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Technology Research Institute, 2-4-10 Aomi, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0064, Japan. mizukoshi@med.kindai.ac.jp.|Department of Environmental Medicine and Behavioral Science, Faculty of Medicine, Kinki University, 377-2, Ohno-higashi, Osakasayama, Osaka, 589-8511, Japan. mizukoshi@med.kindai.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Atsushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mizukoshi
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Systems, Institute of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8563, Japan. noguchi@ejs.seikei.ac.jp.|Department of Materials and Life Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Seikei University, 3-3-1 Kichijoji-kitamachi, Musashino, Tokyo 180-8633, Japan. noguchi@ejs.seikei.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Miyuki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Noguchi
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials and Life Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Seikei University, 3-3-1 Kichijoji-kitamachi, Musashino, Tokyo 180-8633, Japan. akihiro@st.seikei.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Akihiro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Yamasaki
authors.affiliation: Department of Environmental Systems, Institute of Frontier Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8563, Japan. yukio@k.u-tokyo.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Yukio
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yanagisawa
mesh_terms: D000393:Air Pollutants / Q000032:analysis; D000397:Air Pollution / Q000032:analysis*; D016902:Air Pollution, Indoor / Q000032:analysis*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D015386:Hazardous Substances / Q000032:analysis; D006801:Humans; D006838:Hydrocarbons / Q000032:analysis; D007564:Japan; D025341:Principal Component Analysis
chemical_list: D000393:Air Pollutants; D015386:Hazardous Substances; D006838:Hydrocarbons