AAAR 32nd Annual Conference
September 30 - October 4, 2013
Oregon Convention Center
Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Contamination Level of Traffic-related Air Pollutants outside of the Children Day-Care Facilities in Seoul
SEUNG-BOK LEE, Kyung Hwan Kim, Dae-Kwang Woo, Sungho Woo, Gwi Nam Bae, Korea Institute of Science and Technology
Abstract Number: 325 Working Group: Health Related Aerosols
Abstract Traffic-related air pollutants have been reported to have adverse effect to public health, in particular to health of children as an environmental hazardous factor of allergic diseases such as asthma and atopic dermatitis, whose annual prevalence is increasing year by year and becoming one of important social issues in urban area of Korea. In order to characterize the environmental effect of air pollutants to allergic diseases in childhood, indoor exposure level of air pollutants have been measured in children day-care facilities.
In this study, the outdoor contamination level of air pollutants, in particular traffic-related pollutants such as ultrafine particles, particle surface area, particle-bound PAHs, black carbon, and NOx were monitored using a mobile laboratory outside of the two selected children day-care facilities whose indoor contamination levels in Seongbuk-gu and Seongdong-gu, Seoul were classified into the highest group and the lowest group, respectively, in the preliminary survey.
The mobile laboratory measurement of outdoor air quality was conducted not only at 3-4 fixed locations nearby the targeted children day-care facilities but also during driving on the surrounding roads with a total length of 5-9 km.
The traffic-related air pollutants as an indicator of vehicle emission such as concentrations of ultrafine particle number, particle surface area, black carbon, particle-bound PAHs were found higher at the major arterial roads with more than 6 lanes nearby the day-care facilities. The average concentration of measured outdoor NO2 concentrations was lower than that of the indoor air quality for the day-care facility in Seongbuk-gu, implying that there might be indoor sources like cooking. The spatial distribution of traffic-related air pollutants will be discussed in order to consider the penetration of outdoor air contamination to indoor environment for the facility located in Seongdong-gu.