Database of air and noise pollution in Lebanon. Final report

The growing global public concern over deteriorating air quality and greenhouse gases emissions released from various combustion processes, and particularly power plants and transportation system, led governments and local authorities, especially in industrialised countries into taking these issues seriously and establishing standards to reduce air pollution down to acceptable levels, (clean air act, earth summit,...). The transportation sector has another unwanted product, noise pollution caused by different segments of this sector including the noise produced by the engine, tires noise and exhaust noise, in addition to the noise product by private standby generals operating during electricity cut-off periods. To be able to estimate the environmental impacts of the national power plants and the transportation sector, it is necessary to collect enough data (samples of lead emissions, SO2 concentration, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, ozone and carbon monoxide) using specified planning procedures. These samples will then be analyzed and the results will be compared to international standards to assess the implication of these pollutants. For this purpose, the proposed project is aimed at developing data base, over a period of two or more years, for air and noise pollution based on results to be obtained from extensive sampling procedure and under different atmospheric conditions (author)