Understanding ultrafine particle dynamics within a one km urban grid

Abstract

Due to ever increasing awareness about the health relevance of Ultrafine particles (UFP) several studies have examined particle number concentrations (Rank et al., 2001; Gulliver and Briggs, 2007; Briggs et al., 2008), using a variety of different measurement methods. Exposures to UFP in traffic are generally higher than and poorly correlated with concentrations measured simultaneously at fixed monitoring locations, even if these are located in major streets (Kaur et al., 2007). Hence characterization of UFP cannot rely only on fixed site monitoring. A combined mobile and fixed monitoring have been performed to understand fine scale dynamics of UFP within a grid of 1 Km at Borgerhout, Antwerp, Belgium.