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Urban Air Quality: Sources and Concentrations

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Air Pollution Sources, Statistics and Health Effects
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Glossary

Aerodynamic diameter:

Particles in ambient air have irregular shapes. The aerodynamic diameter is the idealized spherical diameter with the same aerodynamic behavior as the irregular real-world particle.

Air pollutants:

Anything in the air around us, man-made or natural, which contaminates the natural steady state of and constituents in the air as required for life categorized as gaseous or particulate pollutants.

Air pollution:

The state of pollutants contaminating the air/atmosphere around us.

Air quality index (AQI):

A numerical index for air pollution, for example, in the UK, it is from 1 to 10 and related to the air quality bands of “low,” “moderate,” “high,” or “very high” (https://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/air-pollution/daqi?view=more-info, accessed May 1st, 2019). Another example is the AQI from the US EPA with a scale from 0 “good” to 500 “hazardous” https://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=aqibasics.aqi (accessed May 1st, 2019).

Air quality:

A subjective, often locally or...

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Goodsite, M.E., Hertel, O., Johnson, M.S., Jørgensen, N.R. (2021). Urban Air Quality: Sources and Concentrations. In: Goodsite, M.E., Johnson, M.S., Hertel, O. (eds) Air Pollution Sources, Statistics and Health Effects. Encyclopedia of Sustainability Science and Technology Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0596-7_321

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