Abstract
There is substantial evidence that airborne particulate matter (PM) contributes to haze, acid rain, global climate change, and decreased life expectancy. Many recent studies have reported that a large fraction of airborne PM could be attributed to fugitive PM (fPM). The developing arid and semi-arid regions, in particular, are facing the biggest brunt of fPM usually ascribed to the regionally transported dust. On the other hand, the rapid expansion of their metropolitan cities is contributing a considerable amount of locally induced fPM which makes it a prominent environmental and health stressor in these areas. Based on field measurements and dispersion modelling, this thesis aims to: (i) measure fPM from two common sources (loose soils and non-exhaust traffic) in areas with arid desert climates, (ii) derive representative emission models, and (iii) assess their overall environmental and health impacts. For this thesis, on site measurements and samples of PM (<10 µm diameter) were collected. Source apportionment was performed to determine the contributions of individual sources. Dispersion modelling and regression analysis were used to derive emission models for loose Calcisols (a prominent soil in the subject areas) and vehicle-induced fPM (VfPM). Finally, our derived models were used along with the state-of-the-art practices (i.e., regional emission models and the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Environmental Burden of Disease (EBD) method) to determine the environmental and health impacts of local fPM. Several important findings were extracted from the above analysis: (i) fPM from different origins contribute more than 60% of the urban PM in arid areas, (ii) power law emission models with wind speed dependence were derived for loose Calcisols soil, (iii) emission factors were derived for VfPM using linear regression and were close to values reported in USA, (iv) EBD estimates found that fPM may lead to ~ 11.0 times higher short-term excess mortalities compared to constant database measurements.