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This paper presents three aspects of air pollution in the city of Buenos Aires (Argentina). First, we describe the main features of air pollution climatology in the city: the characteristics of wind flow, atmospheric stability and mixing heights. Then, we present the results of the application of DAUMOD and ISCST3 atmospheric dispersion models to calculate spatial and temporal distributions of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides background concentrations. Finally, we present the main features of carbon monoxide concentrations observed in a narrow street canyon located downtown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an air monitoring site selection procedure to determine the minimum number and location of monitoring stations to identify the occurrence of background concentrations greater than a reference value in an urban area. The objective technique reported here is based on the analysis of concentrations estimated using an urban dispersion model for at least one year of hourly information. As an example, we applied the proposed methodology to NOx emissions in the city of Copenhagen (Denmark). We used the urban dispersion model DAUMOD to obtain horizontal distribution of hourly background concentrations. We obtained that two monitors would be able to identify 97% of the cases with hourly concentrations greater than 0.20 mg/m3 and 95.2% of cases with daily mean concentration greater than 0.12 mg/m3. We found that the differences on network design due to inter-annual variability of atmospheric conditions were less than 5% of the cases of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the methodology to study the impact of air pollution. Compilation of concentration values and threshold values of pollutants; Application of a design of air monitoring network; Appraisal of the use of atmospheric dispersion models.