Traffic-related particulate air pollution exposure in urban areas

In the last years, there has been an increase of scientific studies confirming that long- and short-term exposure to particulate matter (PM) pollution leads to adverse health effects. The development of a methodology for the determination of accumulated human exposure in urban areas is the main objective of the current work, combining information on concentrations at different microenvironments and population time–activity pattern data. A link between a mesoscale meteorological and dispersion model and a local scale air quality model was developed to define the boundary conditions for the local scale application. The time–activity pattern of the population was derived from statistical information for different sub-population groups and linked to digital city maps. Finally, the hourly PM10 concentrations for indoor and outdoor microenvironments were estimated for the Lisbon city centre, which was chosen as the case-study, based on the local scale air quality model application for a selected period. This methodology is a first approach to estimate population exposure, calculated as the total daily values above the thresholds recommended for long- and short-term health effects. Obtained results reveal that in Lisbon city centre a large number of persons are exposed to PM levels exceeding the legislated limit value.