The dynamic analysis of atmospheric air quality and the reasons for its change in the Russian Federation

Abstract

The study concerns the problem of analyzing the quality of ambient air in the Russian Federation over the past twenty years and determining the causes that influence its change. It is shown that the air quality in urban and rural settlements improves, despite the absence of sustainable positive dynamics in reducing gross emissions of stationary and mobile sources. To explain this phenomenon, it has been suggested that as a result of the spatial redistribution of the location of the emissions sources, residential, recreational and other standardized zones, the sources of exposure to atmospheric air are removed from the places of population. The main substances that affect the atmospheric air quality in the Russian Federation are benzo(a)pyrene, ethylbenzene, carbon, suspended solids, hydrogen fluoride, mercury, hydroxybenzene, hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide and acrolein. The study showed that atmospheric pollution with benzo(a)pyrene decreased 3.14 times, with suspended solids 9.36 times, with carbon monoxide 9.28 times, and with hydroxybenzene 8.74 times. There was a reduction in exposure of carbon monoxide emissions (by 1.236 million tons, VOCs (by 580 thousand tons) and nitrogen oxides (by 297 thousand tons). The quality of ambient air and its change in the Russian Federation was influenced by a number of natural and anthropogenic factors such as adverse weather conditions for dispersion of impurities in the atmosphere, forest fires, industrial accidents and disasters, implementation of planning decisions on the territory of urban and rural settlements, allowing to place emission sources into the ambient air at the necessary distance from residential areas, and to implement the principle of distance protection and etc.