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Black carbon concentrations in a goods-movement neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Black carbon concentrations in a goods-movement neighborhood of Philadelphia, PA

Michelle C. Kondo, Chris Mizes, John Lee and Igor Burstyn
Environmental monitoring and assessment, v 186(7), pp 4605-4618
26 Mar 2014
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-014-3723-8
PMID: 24668123
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://europepmc.org/articles/pmc4048773View
Accepted (AM)Open Access (License Unspecified),  Open

Abstract

Air pollution Black carbon Goods movement Participatory methods Port
Communities along the Delaware River in Philadelphia, USA such as Port Richmond, are subject to traffic associated with goods movement to and from port facilities and local industry. Air pollution associated with this traffic poses an environmental health concern in this and other urban areas. Our study measures black carbon (BC) in Port Richmond and examines its relationship to expected sources such as truck traffic. We used a participatory sampling method to conduct 1-min measurements over 8-hour periods at 14 homes, a school and park, during a 4-week period in June 2012. Measurements over 9 sampling days had a 30-min average BC concentration of 1.2 μg m −3 , and a maximum of 12 μg m −3 . Statistical analyses showed some effect of traffic, but greater association between BC concentrations and weather and time of day. BC concentrations varied more by location than by day, and distance to traffic arterials and interstate freeway was a predictor of this variance. While our dataset is limited by number and variety of observations, major findings indicate that BC concentration varies more by location than by day, there is a decrease in median BC concentration with increased distance from an interstate highway, and an expected effect of diesel traffic on average daily BC concentrations. Our findings are an important step towards understanding patterns and determinants of BC concentration in communities colocated with major ports. Our study also demonstrates that participatory methods in air pollution monitoring can help increase awareness of local air pollution levels.

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8 Record Views
5 citations in Web of Science
3 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
#3 Good Health and Well-Being

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Environmental Sciences
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