Trends of road dust emissions contributions on ambient PM levels at rural, urban and industrial sites in Southern Spain

Abstract

Abstract. The impact of road dust emissions on PM10 and PM2.5 mass concentrations recorded from 2003 to 2010 at 11 locations (rural, urban and industrial) in Southern Spain was estimated based on the chemical characterization of PM and a the use of a constrained Positive Matrix Factorization, where the chemical profile of local road dust samples is used as a priori knowledge. Results indicate that road dust emissions increased PM10 levels on average by 21–35% at traffic sites, 29–34% at urban background sites, 17–22% at urban-industrial sites and 9–22% at rural sites. Road dust contributions to ambient PM levels show a marked seasonality with maxima in summer and minima in winter, likely due to the rainfall frequency. Decreasing concentrations trends over the sampling years where found at some traffic and urban sites but in most cases less significant than for vehicle exhaust emissions, while concentrations increased at industrial sites, probably due to local peculiarities. Concerning PM2.5, road dust contributions were lower than in PM10 as expected, but still important (21–31%, 11–31%, 6–16% and 7% for traffic, urban background, urban-industrial and rural sites respectively). In addition the three main sources of road dust (carbonaceous particles, brake wear and road wear/mineral) were identified and their contributions to road dust mass loadings estimated, supporting air quality managers to drive measures aimed at preventing the build-up of road dust particles on roads.