10th International Aerosol Conference September 2 - September 7, 2018 America's Center Convention Complex St. Louis, Missouri, USA
Abstract View
Efficacy Assessment of Vegetative Environmental Buffer in Reducing Particulate Matter Emitted from Poultry Houses
QI YAO, Zijiang Yang, Hong Li, Michael Buser, John Wanjura, Peter Downey, Chen Zhang, Collin Craige, Alba Torrents, Laura McConnell, Gregory Holt, Cathleen Hapeman, University of Maryland, College Park
Abstract Number: 901 Working Group: Control and Mitigation
Abstract Particulate Matter (PM) emitted from poultry industry have raised concerns due to the potential negative impacts on residents’ health and the neighborhood air quality. In the US, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania together constructed a developed broiler belt (areas where chickens outnumber people) along the Chesapeake Bay, containing almost 12% of all broilers in the country. This intense broiler farming has led to increased complains about the degrading air quality in the area. Consequently, Vegetative Environmental Buffer (VEB) has been proposed as a cost-efficient, environmental-friendly remediation practice to the poultry industry. Few studies have been conducted to evaluate the actual efficacy of a functioning VEB in reducing PM emitted from commercial poultry houses. In this study, field experiments were conducted to characterize PM, including total suspended particles (TSP), PM10, and PM2.5, emission-concentration profiles, as well as to evaluate the effectiveness of VEB in reducing PM concentrations downstream from the poultry houses equipped with VEB. In addition, a modified small-scale Gaussian Plume air dispersion model was used to estimate PM concentration profiles without a VEB under the same meteorological conditions during the sampling period. The results revealed that the diurnal and nocturnal measured PM emission plume shapes were different, which could due to more stable atmosphere at night. VEB promoted the reduction of PM by 20% to 30% based on the comparison between the measured and model-predicted results, which eliminated the diffusion factor.