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Modelling of human exposure to air pollution in the urban environment: a GPS-based approach

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Abstract

The main objective of this work was the development of a new modelling tool for quantification of human exposure to traffic-related air pollution within distinct microenvironments by using a novel approach for trajectory analysis of the individuals. For this purpose, mobile phones with Global Positioning System technology have been used to collect daily trajectories of the individuals with higher temporal resolution and a trajectory data mining, and geo-spatial analysis algorithm was developed and implemented within a Geographical Information System to obtain time–activity patterns. These data were combined with air pollutant concentrations estimated for several microenvironments. In addition to outdoor, pollutant concentrations in distinct indoor microenvironments are characterised using a probabilistic approach. An example of the application for PM2.5 is presented and discussed. The results obtained for daily average individual exposure correspond to a mean value of 10.6 and 6.0–16.4 μg m−3 in terms of 5th–95th percentiles. Analysis of the results shows that the use of point air quality measurements for exposure assessment will not explain the intra- and inter-variability of individuals’ exposure levels. The methodology developed and implemented in this work provides time-sequence of the exposure events thus making possible association of the exposure with the individual activities and delivers main statistics on individual’s air pollution exposure with high spatio-temporal resolution.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology for the Ph.D. grant of D. Dias (SFRH/BD/47578/2008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies and Department of Environment and Planning, University of Aveiro, 3810-193, Aveiro, Portugal

    Daniela Dias

  2. Department of Civil Engineering, FCTUC, University of Coimbra, 3070-788, Coimbra, Portugal

    Oxana Tchepel

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  1. Daniela Dias
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  2. Oxana Tchepel
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Correspondence to Daniela Dias.

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Responsible editor: Michael Matthies

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Dias, D., Tchepel, O. Modelling of human exposure to air pollution in the urban environment: a GPS-based approach. Environ Sci Pollut Res 21, 3558–3571 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-2277-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-2277-6

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