Atmospheric Wet Deposition Monitoring in Iasi, Romania

Abstract

The degradation of environmental quality in many regions of the world has accelerated during the past decades especially due to the industrial development, which has led to important changes in different compartments of the environment. Important atmospheric species are considered to be responsible for wide spread environmental effects including, changes in pH deposition, corrosion of buildings material etc. Deposition of air pollutants is an important loss process for most of the species present in the atmosphere that can cause severe damage to ecosystems. Air pollutants are deposited to the earth’s surface especially through wet and dry processes. Deposition rates are determined in order to estimate the impact of these pollutants on ecological systems. Deposition of pollutants by wet processes is relatively easy to determine through analysis of precipitation samples. However, it is well recognised that less is known about dry deposition, which is much more difficult to measure (estimated using measured air concentration and the deposition velocity concept) and which appears to predominate near strong emission sources with wet deposition predominating further downwind (Whelpdale et al., 1997). Direct measurement of pollutants deposition by dry processes is more difficult and requires extensive instrumentation and technical resources.