Air Quality: Source Apportionment Approaches and Techniques

Air quality and pollution control are international concerns because air pollutants do not respect national borders and because industrial plants and motor vehicles that create air pollutants are widely used nowadays. Polluted air is inconvenient and can pose a major health risk in these cities when it is present in high amounts. When you consider that people can go without food for up to 40 days, but only a few minutes without air, you can see how vital clean air is to life. The first step in improving air quality is to recognize that a healthy atmosphere is just as important as the technological improvements that raise people’s living standards.

Quantifying the effects of emissions sources on atmospheric PM is critical for developing efficient mitigation techniques and deconvolutes atmospheric chemistry during transportation.

As a complement to the national conversation and difficulties of global warming and climate change, to deal with the issue of air quality and contributing sources is timely required. This book contributes to the discussion on source apportionment by addressing some of the topics including air quality sources, chemical characterization, source apportionment approaches and techniques, back trajectory analysis and scientific issues surrounding the role of airborne contaminants in visible trending variations in weather, climate, and atmospheric conditions.

Many more studies have been conducted to control, quantify, and identify the sources of air pollution; however, in this book, a summary of all of them has been provided. The abbreviations, symbols, and index are all mentioned, along with the references used in the books. This book can be used as a resource to provide a concise introduction to source apportionment and to raise public awareness about receptor models. I hope that the reader will profit from this book by learning more about source apportionment approaches.

Any suggestions, corrections, or contributions for future versions are welcome.