Scholarly record

STUDY OF PARTICULATE MATTER AT MITROVICA ROADSIDE IN RURAL AND URBAN AREA OF NORTHERN KOSOVA

A. Syla, E. Karakashi, A. Veliu, K. Berishal, S. Tahirsylaj

Abstract

This research presents aerosol measurements using the field study data from April2004 to December 2006 to evaluate the particulate air pollution in selected area in Mitrovica. This part of northern Kosova constitutes one of most important mining field in Europe. Consequently the industrial activities were mostly connected to the exploitation of the base metal ores of the Trep\cca district as well as the smelter of Zve\ccan and the Trep\cca battery factory. The town of Zve\ccan and Mitrovica have been exposed for many years to the poisons emissions of the Zve\ccan stacks. Indeed, according to a crude estimate, about a ton of lead vapours were daily related to the atmosphere through the main stack Because of the imposing emissions, the KFOR Headquarters decided to stop in August 2000 the roasting plant activity at Zve\ccan. However, atmospheric transport of the emissions from the Zve\ccan plants provoked a serious heavy metal pollution of a vast area embarcing the Iber and Sitnica valleys: soils, air within a radius of at least 10 kilometers from the stacks are heavily polluted mostly for highly toxic elements such as lead and cadmium. The study employed microenvironment monitoring technique to access the exposure of suspended particulate and airborne lead at heavily trafficked urban roadside. A total of 25 roadside side in 8 districts were selected which covered the most urbanized and densely populated area. It was found that pedestrians exposed to 24 hour average and airborne lead ranged from 29.35 to 425.32 microgram/cubic meter and 0.0954 to 0.856 microgram/cubic meter. Most field study data was significantly higher than the nearby fixed station data

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