Department of Environmental Engineering, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran.
Environ Monit Assess. 2011 Jan;172(1-4):215-23. doi: 10.1007/s10661-010-1328-4. Epub 2010 Feb 6.
The implementation and maintenance of an air pollution monitoring program can be expensive and time consuming, especially when the aim is for long-term monitoring over a significant area. Consequently, it is essential that sites are optimized to provide the best representative cover while minimizing costs. In the past, there has been a tendency to locate sampling stations at pollution hot-spots. While this is acceptable for determining a maximum potential exposure or identifying the extent of a risk, there are limitations to this approach when assessing the potential impact of any future abatement strategies or determining the level of exposure outside the vicinity. This paper presents an approach in which representative air quality assessments can be undertaken for an urban area using the minimum number of measurement sites. A novel methodology is described that involves site selection to capture the maximum variance in measured pollutants, while minimizing spatiotemporal autocorrelation between the selected sites. A case study is presented for Yazd, Iran. Overall, the results show that the proposed methodology can be effective and enable the long-term monitoring of air pollution to be undertaken on a cost-effective basis in urban areas. In addition, there is the potential for the methodology to be utilized for other forms of pollution (e.g., water, soil, and noise).
空气污染监测计划的实施和维护可能非常昂贵且耗时，特别是当目标是在较大区域进行长期监测时。因此，优化监测点以提供最佳代表性覆盖范围同时最小化成本至关重要。过去，采样站通常设置在污染热点地区。虽然这种方法可以确定最大潜在暴露或识别风险的程度，但在评估任何未来减排策略的潜在影响或确定附近以外的暴露水平时，这种方法存在局限性。本文提出了一种使用最少数量的测量站点对城市地区进行代表性空气质量评估的方法。描述了一种新的方法，该方法涉及选择站点以捕获测量污染物的最大方差，同时最小化所选站点之间的时空自相关。以伊朗亚兹德市为例进行了案例研究。总体而言，结果表明，所提出的方法可以有效实现，并且可以在经济有效的基础上对城市地区的空气污染进行长期监测。此外，该方法还有可能用于其他形式的污染（例如水、土壤和噪声）。
