Abstract

FLORES MARGEZ, Juan Pedro; SUKLA, Manoj K.; WANG, Junming  and  HERNANDEZ ARRATIA, Berenice C.. Particulate matter dispersed by vehicles running on agricultural unpaved roads. Terra Latinoam [online]. 2011, vol.29, n.1, pp.23-34. ISSN 2395-8030.

Dust emission due to vehicular traffic on unpaved rural roads starts with the pulverization of surface material by the force of the wheels, uplifting and exposing road dust to strong air currents behind the wheels. The objectives of the project were to demonstrate the usefulness of a simple technique involving sticky tapes and rotorod samplers for collecting suspended airborne particulate matter (MP) emitted from unpaved road due to vehicular traffic, to carry out the mass accounting and to compare sticky tape data with MET-1 sampler data. Dust samples were collected 1.5, 4.5 and 6 m above the ground surface on the east and west sides of two roads in Valle de Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The soil analysis showed that average total silt and clay content of road dust was 51±0.7 %, and in situ gravimetric moisture content was 3.47±0.3 % on the "UACJ" road, whereas it was 52±3.3 % and 2.13±0.17% on the "Rodela" road. Concentration of particles retained on sticky tapes increased on average from 4.02 mg m-3 at 32 km h-1 vehicle speed to 16.07 mg m-3 at 64 km h-1 at the "Rodela" site. Emission factors estimated for the total suspended MP were 3469 mg m-3 at 32 km h-1, 3918 g m-3 48 km h-1 and 4271 g m-3 at 64 km h-1 vehicle speed, respectively. The concentrations of particles measured by MET-1 sampler at 1.5 m above soil surface increased from 0.08 mg m-3 at 32 km h-1 to 0.14 mg m-3 at 64 km h-1 vehicle speed at the "Rodela" site. Sticky tapes provided information on the amount of particles, and demonstrated the usefulness of sticky tapes for characterizing airborne MP.

Keywords : sticky tape; rotors; silt; clay; dust; emission.

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