Air quality in a tourist seashore city during vacation

Abstract

The air quality in urban regions is affected by the presence of pollutants, mainly coming from combustion processes. The principal source is vehicular traffic which emits nitrogen, sulfur and carbon oxides, hydrocarbons, particulate matter, etc. into the atmosphere. In this work the influence of the changes in traffic during holidays on the air quality of the centre of Mar del Plata city was analyzed. For this purpose continuous monitoring equipment with electrochemical sensor technology was installed, in order to determine the contaminant concentration. Simultaneously the vehicular density was measured. These measurements were performed during winter vacations and during a similar period of working days. The obtained results allow one to determine that the air quality in the centre of Mar del Plata is not noticeably affected by the fluency of more vehicles. This was interpreted taking into account the behaviour of the tourists and local people. The determined pollutant levels are relatively low considering the number of automobiles. This situation is usually observed in seashore cities, due to the air fluxes or "channels" formed in the street canyons, which include the street and their flanking walls [1].