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Atmosphere
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Air Quality in the UK (2nd Edition)
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Air Quality in the UK (2nd Edition)

A special issue of Atmosphere (ISSN 2073-4433). This special issue belongs to the section "Air Quality".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (27 May 2024) | Viewed by 1001

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Fabio Galatioto

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Ricardo Energy & Environment, Harwell OX11 0QR, UK
Interests: monitoring; modelling and predictions; indoor/outdoor air quality; pollutants emissions; transport strategies and planning; sustainable transport; transport modes
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Francis Pope

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK
Interests: atmospheric sciences; human health; sustainable cities; air pollution; climate change; fundamental aerosol chemistry and microphysics; city resilience
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cities, urban areas and large indoor spaces are where the population and the economy of a country grow; however, these same places are known to be subject to the highest level of air pollution in the world. According to the World Health Organization, 90% of people are exposed to unsafe air, and breathing it in is killing nearly 9 million people a year and harming billions more. The number of early deaths caused by air pollution has doubled previous estimates, with toxic air now killing more people than tobacco, making air pollution the third highest cause of death globally. In the UK, according to a 2016 report from the Royal College of Physicians, up to 40,000 additional deaths and a reduction in lifespan of up to 2 years can be linked to air pollution exposure.

Thus, research, applications, technology and innovation with respect to air quality, spanning from monitoring to modelling, impact assessment and exposure quantification, are needed more than ever to mitigate this global issue in the long term and enable clean and sustainable economic growth.

In recent years, the UK has implemented more stringent policies (e.g., the Clean Air Strategy and Clean Air Zones, and recently The Environment Bill), funded several research and innovation projects across the country and applied research through EU and international initiatives in UK Demonstration Cities. Accordingly, we hope this Special Issue will provide an opportunity for academia, industry, local authorities and relevant agencies to publish original research or reviews on the subject of “Air Quality in the UK’’ and identify new technologies that can be used to address the problem. This Special Issue is a follow-up of the first volume by the same name (https://www.mdpi.com/journal/atmosphere/special_issues/Air_UK) published in Atmosphere in 2021.

Dr. Fabio Galatioto
Prof. Dr. Francis Pope
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Atmosphere is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • air quality/emissions monitoring, modelling and mapping
  • applications of innovative technologies to reduce emissions and/or pollutant concentrations
  • implementation of urban strategies/policies to improve outdoor air quality
  • indoor air quality (residential, business, measurements, modelling, impacts, in-out flow, etc.)
  • road, rail, maritime and aviation pollution sources and their individual or cumulative air quality impacts
  • non-transport-related air quality (e.g., major urban sources, innovation in industrial air pollution abatement)
  • clean growth and the economic implications of poor air quality (indoor and outdoor, implications on productivity, etc.)
  • air quality human exposure (epidemiology, biomonitoring technologies, the impacts of ultra-fine particles on human health, short- and long-term implications, etc.).

Published Papers (2 papers)

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22 pages, 3644 KiB  
Article
Investigating the Effect of Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) Emission Reduction on Surface-Level Ozone (O3) during Summer across the UK
by Lydia Curley, Rayne Holland, M. Anwar H. Khan and Dudley E. Shallcross
Atmosphere 2024, 15(6), 733; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos15060733 - 19 Jun 2024
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Abstract
UK air pollutant data collected over a 10-year period (2010–2019) from 46 sites with Urban Traffic, Urban Background, Suburban Background, Rural Background, and Urban Industrial environmental types were analysed to study the relationships between [NO] vs. [PM2.5] and [O3] [...] Read more.
UK air pollutant data collected over a 10-year period (2010–2019) from 46 sites with Urban Traffic, Urban Background, Suburban Background, Rural Background, and Urban Industrial environmental types were analysed to study the relationships between [NO] vs. [PM2.5] and [O3] vs. [PM2.5] during the summer for each site type. These results were used to describe the consequence of recent PM2.5 reductions on NO and O3 concentrations at different site types across the UK. The strongest positive [NO] vs. [PM2.5] correlation was observed for the Urban Traffic site type overall, but it displayed the weakest positive [O3] vs. [PM2.5] correlation. Analysis of individual Urban Traffic sites revealed an overall negative [O3] vs. [PM2.5] gradient at the London Marylebone Road (LMR) site. A sharp 35% PM2.5 decrease occurred at LMR between 2011 and 2015 before annual mean concentrations plateaued. Further examination of annual correlations revealed negative [O3] vs. [PM2.5] gradients in each year directly proceeding the sharp 35% PM2.5 decrease at LMR. NOx fluctuations were minimal and accompanied by comparable volatile organic compound (VOC) decreases; thus, VOC-limited chemistry at LMR was deemed to not be the primary cause of O3 increases. Instead, PM2.5 reductions are suggested to be a more significant factor in causing O3 increases, as suppression of O3 production by PM2.5 chemistry decreases with declining [PM2.5]. The remaining two Urban Traffic sites in Birmingham did not display a negative [O3] vs. [PM2.5] correlation in the years studied. This was partly ascribed to the Birmingham measurement sites not being under the influence of the street canyon effect like LMR. Principal attribution was to the lower-average absolute initial PM2.5 concentrations and absence of a significant (>26%) continuous mean PM2.5 decline of greater than 2 years. This study therefore proposed a threshold initial PM2.5 concentration (t) above which O3 suppression by PM2.5 chemistry is sufficient to induce O3 increases when average PM2.5 concentrations significantly decline (by >26% across >2 years), where 17 μg m−3 < t < 26 μg m−3. Extending this analysis to additional cities across the UK as sufficient data become available would allow refinement of the proposed threshold and improved understanding of the influence from the street canyon effect. These results inform future air pollution policies, in the UK and across the globe, in which further joint reductions of PM2.5 and O3 are crucial to achieve maximum benefits to human health. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality in the UK (2nd Edition))
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19 pages, 2690 KiB  
Article
Seasonality of Heavy Metal Concentrations in Ambient Particulate Matter in the UK
by David M. Butterfield, Richard J. C. Brown and Andrew S. Brown
Atmosphere 2024, 15(6), 636; https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos15060636 - 24 May 2024
Viewed by 494
Abstract
The seasonal characteristics of air pollutant concentrations are important for understanding variations in emissions released into the air and in atmospheric chemistry. The patterns seen can be influenced by anthropogenic emissions, meteorological conditions, and the transport of pollutants over long and short distances. [...] Read more.
The seasonal characteristics of air pollutant concentrations are important for understanding variations in emissions released into the air and in atmospheric chemistry. The patterns seen can be influenced by anthropogenic emissions, meteorological conditions, and the transport of pollutants over long and short distances. Whilst seasonality is well understood for some pollutants such as ozone and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, it is poorly understood and under-investigated for heavy metals in particulate matter (PM). This work studies long-term datasets of heavy metals in PM from a relevant UK air quality monitoring network, demonstrating the seasonal characteristics of the concentrations of these metals for the first time. Surprisingly, both ‘high in winter–low in summer’ and ‘low in winter–high in summer’ seasonality was observed, with some metals showing little or no seasonality. The ‘high in winter–low in summer’ seasonality (particularly for As) is attributable to the dominant contribution being from local primary sources, such as burning process producing larger PM sizes. The ‘low in winter–high in summer’ seasonality (particularly for V) is attributable to weak or non-seasonal local sources being dominated by contributions from medium and long-range transport during the summer months, when pollutant transport is more efficient. The findings contribute significantly to our understanding of the seasonality of metals in PM concentrations and the role played by the long-range transport of pollutants. Conclusions are also drawn about the implications for the calculation of annual averages on compliance-based air quality networks if data from a time series of a pollutant that displays seasonal characteristics are missing. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Air Quality in the UK (2nd Edition))
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