This paper presents an assessment of air quality of the Kathmandu valley, capital city of Nepal. This is the largest urbanized area in the country of about 300 km2. In the last two decades an intensive development of ...This paper presents an assessment of air quality of the Kathmandu valley, capital city of Nepal. This is the largest urbanized area in the country of about 300 km2. In the last two decades an intensive development of demographic, traffic and industry growth in the region was observed which was reflected on the air quality degradation. In order to evaluate the urban air quality in Kathmandu, a field monitoring network for particle deposition, nitrogen dioxide （NO2） and sulphur dioxide （SO2） by passive sampling with high space resolution was implemented in co-operation with IVL-Sweden. The net work composed of 60 monitoring sites distributed in a grid of 1 × 1 km2 covering all over the main city and some rural valley. Monitoring were carried out for two seasons, rainy and dry as two campaign monitoring. The diffusive samplers were prepared and analyzed in IVL, Sweden. Good agreements in particle deposition between the two campaigns were observed. The particle deposition to the surrogate surface varied between 3 and 608 μg@cm2·monthl for the monitoring periods. The NOz concentrations on the other hand were quite similar in the two campaigns, and the SO2 concentrations were much lower in the first campaign compared to the second. The ranges of NO2 and SO2 concentrations were found to be from 5.6 to 52.6 μg/m3 and 0.6 to 23.4 μg·m-3 respectively. Arc Info/Arc map GIS 9.2 software was used for production of maps of spatial distribution of all the three parameters in the valley. Seasonal variation and traffic influence were also studied. Local meteorological effects in the distribution of pollutants were clearly observed and the NO2 concentrations were strictly related with traffic intensity.展开更多
文摘This paper presents an assessment of air quality of the Kathmandu valley, capital city of Nepal. This is the largest urbanized area in the country of about 300 km2. In the last two decades an intensive development of demographic, traffic and industry growth in the region was observed which was reflected on the air quality degradation. In order to evaluate the urban air quality in Kathmandu, a field monitoring network for particle deposition, nitrogen dioxide （NO2） and sulphur dioxide （SO2） by passive sampling with high space resolution was implemented in co-operation with IVL-Sweden. The net work composed of 60 monitoring sites distributed in a grid of 1 × 1 km2 covering all over the main city and some rural valley. Monitoring were carried out for two seasons, rainy and dry as two campaign monitoring. The diffusive samplers were prepared and analyzed in IVL, Sweden. Good agreements in particle deposition between the two campaigns were observed. The particle deposition to the surrogate surface varied between 3 and 608 μg@cm2·monthl for the monitoring periods. The NOz concentrations on the other hand were quite similar in the two campaigns, and the SO2 concentrations were much lower in the first campaign compared to the second. The ranges of NO2 and SO2 concentrations were found to be from 5.6 to 52.6 μg/m3 and 0.6 to 23.4 μg·m-3 respectively. Arc Info/Arc map GIS 9.2 software was used for production of maps of spatial distribution of all the three parameters in the valley. Seasonal variation and traffic influence were also studied. Local meteorological effects in the distribution of pollutants were clearly observed and the NO2 concentrations were strictly related with traffic intensity.
