[en] Nowadays, the human health is closely related to quality of indoor air. This article analyzes the main types of pollution to indoor air and their harms to human health, and on this basis, it sets forth the prevention measures comprehensively and proposes advices to normalize industry standards. (paper)

[en] Currently, air quality information in a region becomes an important thing to know. Some efforts have been conducted to show air quality in certain region. One of the efforts that has been done is information regarding air quality in several big cities in Indonesia which can be seen in the official website of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry that have several weaknesses. One of the problems to be overcome in this research is visualization of air quality data that is monitored at one point only in which that point is the placement location of air quality monitoring station. Because of that, we need an application that can display a map of air pollution distribution using the spatial interpolation method. The solution offered is the depiction of air quality by using heatmap on the map. The method used to produce heatmap with smooth result is natural cubic spline interpolation method. The production of heatmap uses API which is provided by Google Maps. The final result obtained is the map view with the coloration in the form of color gradation in accordance with the air quality value that is obtained. (paper)

[en] Beijing Haze has been phenomenal, especially for winter, and widely considered a result of the increasing anthropogenic emissions of atmospheric pollutants in the region. Since 2013, the pollutant emissions have been reduced with the help of a series of emission-control actions. However, severe haze events still occurred frequently in Beijing in recent winters, e.g., those of 2015 and 2016, implying that other factors such as meteorological conditions and interannual climate variability have also played an important role in forming the haze. Based on homogenized station observations, atmospheric circulation reanalysis and anthropogenic emissions data for the period 1980–2017, this paper attempts to quantify the relative importance of anthropogenic emissions and climatic conditions to the frequency and intensity of Beijing Haze in winter. It is found that the frequency (number) of hazy days exhibits large interannual variability and little trend, and its variations were mainly controlled by climate variability, with a correlation coefficient of 0.77. On the other hand, the intensity of haze displays strong interannual variability and a significant increasing trend during 1980–2012 and a notable decreasing trend during 2012–2017. The multiple linear regression model suggests that about half of the total variance of the haze intensity is explained by climate variability (mainly for interannual variations), and another half by the changing emissions (mainly for the trends). (letter)

[en] One of the concerns of the air pollution studies is to compute the concentrations of one or more pollutants' species in space and time in relation to the independent variables, for instance emissions into the atmosphere, meteorological factors and parameters. One of the most significant statistical disciplines developed for the applied sciences and many other disciplines for the last few decades is the extreme value theory (EVT). This study assesses the use of extreme value distributions of the two-parameter Gumbel, two and three-parameter Weibull, Generalized Extreme Value (GEV) and two and three-parameter Generalized Pareto Distribution (GPD) on the maximum concentration of daily PM10 data recorded in the year 2010 - 2012 in Pasir Gudang, Johor; Bukit Rambai, Melaka; and Nilai, Negeri Sembilan. Parameters for all distributions are estimated using the Method of Moments (MOM) and Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE). Six performance indicators namely; the accuracy measures which include predictive accuracy (PA), Coefficient of Determination (R2), Index of Agreement (IA) and error measures that consist of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Normalized Absolute Error (NAE) are used to find the goodness-of-fit of the distribution. The best distribution is selected based on the highest accuracy measures and the smallest error measures. The results showed that the GEV is the best fit for daily maximum concentration for PM10 for all monitoring stations. The analysis also demonstrates that the estimated numbers of days in which the concentration of PM10 exceeded the Malaysian Ambient Air Quality Guidelines (MAAQG) of 150 mg/ m"3 are between 1/2 and 11/2 days. (author)

[en] The method of separate power plant contribution assessment to harmful substances concentration in city atmosphere near ground is proposed. The methodic is based on careful simultaneous measuring of the concentration of specific substances under different meteorological conditions and wide range of changing of enterprise work-load on the one hand, and strict control for enterprise technological regime - on the other hand. (author)

[en] The environmental problem of territory and atmosphere pollution caused by transportation and handling of dust-generating bulk cargo materials is quite common for the whole world. The reducing of weight of fine class coal caused by air blowing reaches the level of 0.5–0.6 t per railcar over the 500 km transportation distance, which is equal to the loss of 1 % of the total weight. The studies showed that all over the country in the process of the railroad transportation, the industry loses 3–5 metric tonnes of coal annually. There are several common tactical measurers to prevent dust formation: treating the dust-producing materials at dispatch point with special liquid solutions; watering the stacks and open handling points of materials; frequent dust removing and working area cleaning. Recently there appeared several new radical measures for pollution prevention in export of ore and coal materials via sea port terminals, specifically: wind-dust protection screens, the container cargo handling system of delivery materials to the hold of the vessels. The article focuses on the discussion of these measures. (paper)

[en] In recent decades, the emission of the nitrogen oxides (NOX) has been increasing with the years of the thermal power plant. The environment pollution caused by the emission of quantities of nitrogen oxides became more and more serious, so people now put more emphasis on the control of the emission of the nitrogen oxides. Especially, our country and the society are paying much more attention to the environment protection and the environment problems cannot be neglected. In this paper, we introduced the related research background of the technology of SCR denitrification which was as the symbol of the technology of the catalytic denitrification and discussed the reaction principles of the SCR denitrification and frequently used catalysts, the process of the technology, and the configuration. In the end, we pointed the way of the future research of the technology of the SCR denitrification. (paper)

[en] Highlights: • We examine the effect of the U.S. Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) on electricity flows. • Electricity imports in the regulated region increased after RGGI's establishment. • Results suggest emissions reductions in region are offset by increased emissions in other regions. This paper presents evidence that electricity influx to the U.S. Northeast increased after the introduction of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon emissions abatement program. Electricity markets allow emissions reductions achieved in the region to be offset by increased emissions in other electricity-producing regions, as local generation is replaced with electricity imports. The empirical analysis is conducted using the synthetic control method. Results indicate that imports increased after RGGI's establishment in 2009—in which the increase predominantly occurred after the emission cap was reduced in 2014—which suggests that electricity production and carbon emissions increased outside RGGI.

[en] A method for presenting the health impact of emissions from furniture is introduced, which could be used in the context of environmental product declarations. The health impact is described by the negative indoor air quality potential, the carcinogenic potential, the mutagenic and reprotoxic potential, the allergenic potential, and the toxicological potential. An experimental study of emissions from four pieces of furniture is performed by testing both the materials used for production of the furniture and the complete piece of furniture, in order to compare the results gained by adding emissions of material with results gained from testing the finished piece of furniture. Calculating the emission from a product based on the emission from materials used in the manufacture of the product is a new idea. The relation between calculated results and measured results from the same products differ between the four pieces of furniture tested. Large differences between measured and calculated values are seen for leather products. More knowledge is needed to understand why these differences arise. Testing materials allows us to compare different suppliers of the same material. Four different foams and three different timber materials are tested, and the results vary between materials of the same type. If the manufacturer possesses this type of knowledge of the materials from the subcontractors it could be used as a selection criterion according to production of low emission products. -- Highlights: • A method for presenting health impact of emissions is introduced. • An experimental study of emissions from four pieces of furniture is performed. • Health impact is calculated based on sum of contribution from the materials used. • Calculated health impact is compared to health impact of the manufactured product. • The results show that health impact could be useful in product development and for presentation in EPDs

[en] Aviation NO_x emissions promote tropospheric ozone formation, which is linked to climate warming and adverse health effects. Modeling studies have quantified the relative impact of aviation NO_x on O₃ in large geographic regions. As these studies have applied forward modeling techniques, it has not been possible to attribute O₃ formation to individual flights. Here we apply the adjoint of the global chemistry–transport model GEOS-Chem to assess the temporal and spatial variability in O₃ production due to aviation NO_x emissions, which is the first application of an adjoint to this problem. We find that total aviation NO_x emitted in October causes 40% more O₃ than in April and that Pacific aviation emissions could cause 4–5 times more tropospheric O₃ per unit NO_x than European or North American emissions. Using this sensitivity approach, the O₃ burden attributable to 83 000 unique scheduled civil flights is computed individually. We find that the ten highest total O₃-producing flights have origins or destinations in New Zealand or Australia. The top ranked O₃-producing flights normalized by fuel burn cause 157 times more normalized O₃ formation than the bottom ranked ones. These results show significant spatial and temporal heterogeneity in environmental impacts of aviation NO_x emissions. (letter)