Quality Management System in Air Quality Measurements for Sustainable Development

Abstract

Air pollution is a global health issue and a cause of premature mortality. There is an urgent need to develop air quality monitoring networks and to implement standards enabling dependable testing and delivering reliable results. European standards provide reference methods for testing ambient air quality, which are used in accredited laboratories. In this paper, we present an example of research conducted with the use of a mobile, automated station Airpointer® in an industrial area under pressure from the lime and cement industry located in southeastern Poland. During the measurement campaign, the concentrations of the studied pollutants did not exceed the permissible thresholds, yet they strongly depended on meteorological conditions. The air filter was analysed with an energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) microanalyzer in the scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results confirmed that dust particles present in ambient air are connected with local emission sources—industry based on the extraction and processing of minerals. The equipment and measurement techniques used in this study are effective in identifying the potential threat of air pollution. Automated, short-term measurements of air pollution can be a significant source of information, indispensable for drawing up action plans aimed at air quality protection in order to achieve sustainable development goals.