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Despite the increasing number of studies on industrially contaminated sites (ICS) and their health effects, there are very few studies on perinatal health outcomes in ICSs. In the present study, we examined the perinatal health inequalities by comparing adverse birth outcomes (ABOs) in the oil shale industry region of Ida-Viru County in Estonia with national-level figures and investigated the effects of maternal environmental and sociodemographic factors. Based on the 208,313 birth records from 2004–2018, Ida-Viru ICS has a birth weight 124.5 g lower than the average of 3544 g in Estonia. A higher prevalence of preterm birth (4.3%) and low birth weight (4.8%) in Ida-Viru ICS is found compared to 3.3% on both indicators at the national level. Multiple logistic regression analysis shows the statistically significant association of ABOs with fine particle (PM2.5) air pollution, mother’s ethnicity, and education throughout Estonia. However, in Ida-Viru ICS, the ABOs odds are remarkably higher in these characteristics except for the mother’s ethnicity. Furthermore, the ABOs are associated with the residential proximity to ICS. Thus, the Ida-Viru ICS has unequally higher odds of adverse perinatal health across the environmental and sociodemographic factors. In addition to reducing the air pollutants, policy actions on social disparities are vital to address the country’s unjustly higher perinatal health inequalities, especially in the Ida-Viru ICS.

Ambient ammonia (NH3) measurements were performed with a mobile platform in three European cities: Zurich (Switzerland), Tartu (Estonia) and Tallinn (Estonia) deploying an NH3 analyzer based on cavity ring-down spectroscopy. A heated inlet line along with an auxiliary flow was used to minimize NH3 adsorption onto the inlet walls. In addition, a detailed characterization of the response and recovery times of the measurement system was used to deconvolve the true NH3 signal from the remaining adsorption-induced hysteresis. Parallel measurements with an aerosol mass spectrometer were used to correct the observed NH3 for the contribution of ammonium nitrate, which completely evaporated in the heated line at the chosen temperature, in contrast to ammonium sulfate. In this way a quantitative measurement of ambient gaseous NH3 was achieved with sufficient time resolution to enable measurement of NH3 point sources with a mobile sampling platform. The NH3 analyzer and the aerosol mass spectrometer were complemented by an aethalometer and various gas-phase analyzers to enable a complete characterization of the sources of air pollution, including the spatial distributions and the regional background concentrations and urban increments of all measured components. Although at all three locations similar increment levels of organic aerosols were attributed to biomass burning and traffic, traffic emissions clearly dominated the city enhancements of NH3, equivalent black carbon (eBC) and carbon dioxide (CO2). Urban increments of 3.4, 1.8 and 3.0 ppb of NH3 were measured in the traffic areas in Zurich, Tartu and Tallinn, respectively, representing an enhancement of 36.6, 38.3 and 93.8% over the average background concentrations. Measurements in areas strongly influenced by traffic emissions (including tunnel drives) were used to estimate emission factors (EF) for the traffic-related pollutants. The obtained median EFs range between 136.8-415.1 mg kg−1 fuel for NH3, 157.1–734.8 mg kg−1 fuel for eBC and 39.9–324.3 mg kg−1 fuel for HOA. Significant differences were found between the EFs of certain components in the three cities, which were partially linked to an older vehicle fleet in Estonia compared to Switzerland. Using the determined EFs we show that traffic can fully explain the NH3 enhancements in the three cities and also presents a non-negligible fraction of the background concentrations, which are mostly related to agricultural activities. Moreover, the estimated total contribution of traffic to NH3 at all three locations is in good agreement with the available emission inventories.

Air pollution is one of the main environmental concerns in urban areas, where anthropogenic emissions strongly affect air quality. This work presents the first spatially resolved detailed characterization of PM2.5 (particulate matter with aerodynamic equivalent diameter daero ≤ 2.5 µm) in two major Estonian cities, Tallinn and Tartu. The measurements were performed in March 2014 using a mobile platform. In both cities, the non-refractory (NR)-PM2.5 was characterized by a high-resolution time-of-flight aerosol mass spectrometer (HR-ToF-AMS) using a recently developed lens which increases the transmission of super-micron particles. Equivalent black carbon (eBC) and several trace gases including carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), and methane (CH4) were also measured. The chemical composition of PM2.5 was found to be very similar in the two cities. Organic aerosol (OA) constituted the largest fraction, explaining on average about 52 to 60 % of the PM2.5 mass. Four sources of OA were identified using positive matrix factorization (PMF): hydrocarbon-like OA (HOA, from traffic emissions), biomass burning OA (BBOA, from biomass combustion), residential influenced OA (RIOA, probably mostly from cooking processes with possible contributions from waste and coal burning), and oxygenated OA (OOA, related to secondary aerosol formation). OOA was the major OA source during nighttime, explaining on average half of the OA mass, while during daytime mobile measurements the OA was affected by point sources and dominated by the primary fraction. A strong increase in the secondary organic and inorganic components was observed during periods with transport of air masses from northern Germany, while the primary local emissions accumulated during periods with temperature inversions. Mobile measurements offered the identification of different source regions within the urban areas and the assessment of the extent to which pollutants concentrations exceeded regional background levels (urban increments). HOA, eBC, CO2, and CO showed stronger enhancements on busy roads during the morning and evening traffic rush hours; BBOA had its maximum enhancement in the residential areas during the evening hours and RIOA was enhanced in both the city center (emissions from restaurants) and in the residential areas (emissions from residential cooking). In contrast, secondary components (OOA, sulfate (SO4), nitrate (NO3), ammonium (NH4), and chloride (Cl)) had very homogeneous distributions in time and space. We were able to determine a total PM2.5 urban increment in Tartu of 6.0 µg m−3 over a regional background concentration of 4.0 µg m−3 (i.e., a factor of 2.5 increase). Traffic exhaust emissions were identified as the most important source of this increase, with eBC and HOA explaining on average 53.3 and 20.5 % of the total increment, respectively.

Waste burning is globally important emission source of several toxic compounds. The objective of this study was to acquire emission factors (EF) for PCDD/Fs, HCBs, PAHs, PMx and for several gaseous pollutants from the residential combustion, where wood is burned with municipal solid waste (MSW). In addition to the wood, paper and cardboard waste, people also tend to burn MSW. As the burnable waste content in MSW has changed during the past years, it is important to assess the effect of this factor for air emissions nowadays and in the past. Therefore an attempt was made to derive EF for the past emissions. 18 experiments including samples of firewood and MSW were burned using Estonian most common old type masonry heater, measuring PMx, PCDD/F, HCB, PAH-s and gaseous pollutants. Significant correlation was found between PCDD/F, HCl, HCB and CO and between HCl and HCB in all 18 experiments. In three experiments (years 1990, 1995, 2000), the mean levels of PCDD/F were higher than the legislative limit value for combustion of MSW in waste incineration plants. The mean PCDD/F concentrations during the experiments was 0.0833 (0.0116–0.1550 95% Cl) ng I-TEQ Nm −3 11% O 2 . Since low chlorine levels in used fuel caused high emissions of PCDD/F and HCB, it indicates that the habit of burning these kinds of waste in residential heaters should be avoided. We can conclude that RWC is significant source of PCDD/F, HCB and PAH. In general, EF measured within this study are in accordance with literature data. There was remarkable difference in EF between different years. EF of PCDD/F and HCB found confirm the trend of development of MSW collection system leading to an increasing usage of MSW recycling. Nevertheless, people's awareness about the negative impacts of waste burning in household heaters, should be raised.

Bootstrap analysis is commonly used to capture the uncertainties of a bilinear receptor model such as the positive matrix factorization (PMF) model. This approach can estimate the factor-related uncertainties and partially assess the rotational ambiguity of the model. The selection of the environmentally plausible solutions, though, can be challenging, and a systematic approach to identify and sort the factors is needed. For this, comparison of the factors between each bootstrap run and the initial PMF output, as well as with externally determined markers, is crucial. As a result, certain solutions that exhibit suboptimal factor separation should be discarded. The retained solutions would then be used to test the robustness of the PMF output. Meanwhile, analysis of filter samples with the Aerodyne aerosol mass spectrometer and the application of PMF and bootstrap analysis on the bulk water-soluble organic aerosol mass spectra have provided insight into the source identification and their uncertainties. Here, we investigated a full yearly cycle of the sources of organic aerosol (OA) at three sites in Estonia: Tallinn (urban), Tartu (suburban) and Kohtla-Järve (KJ; industrial). We identified six OA sources and an inorganic dust factor. The primary OA types included biomass burning, dominant in winter in Tartu and accounting for 73 % ± 21 % of the total OA, primary biological OA which was abundant in Tartu and Tallinn in spring (21 % ± 8 % and 11 % ± 5 %, respectively), and two other primary OA types lower in mass. A sulfur-containing OA was related to road dust and tire abrasion which exhibited a rather stable yearly cycle, and an oil OA was connected to the oil shale industries in KJ prevailing at this site that comprises 36 % ± 14 % of the total OA in spring. The secondary OA sources were separated based on their seasonal behavior: a winter oxygenated OA dominated in winter (36 % ± 14 % for KJ, 25 % ± 9 % for Tallinn and 13 % ± 5 % for Tartu) and was correlated with benzoic and phthalic acid, implying an anthropogenic origin. A summer oxygenated OA was the main source of OA in summer at all sites (26 % ± 5 % in KJ, 41 % ± 7 % in Tallinn and 35 % ± 7 % in Tartu) and exhibited high correlations with oxidation products of a-pinene-like pinic acid and 3-methyl-1, 2, 3-butanetricarboxylic acid (MBTCA), suggesting a biogenic origin., Acknowledgements. This work was funded by the Estonian–Swiss cooperation program “Enforcement of the surveillance network of the Estonian air quality: Determination of origin of fine particles in Estonia”. María Cruz Minguillón acknowledges the Ramón y Ca-jal Fellowship awarded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness. The Labex OSUG@2020 (ANR-10-LABX-56) provided the funding for part of the analytical equipment at Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement (IGE; France). We also acknowledge the contribution of the COST Action CA16109 COLOSSAL.

Emissions from cattle farms in Estonia may vary from emissions in other regions of Europe due climatic differences and the housing systems used. Emission factors (EF) for the tie and loose housing systems for dairy farming were measured. Ammonia, odour and H2S emission measurements were made in tie and loose housing cattle farms with solid and liquid manure systems. Measurement were carried out in 2007 (10 different days from February to October) and in 2013 (in 30 different days in July–August). The gaseous EFs calculated for the tie housing cow building were 5.34 ± 0.47 kg [NH3] y−1 AU−1, 19.36 ± 4.39 g [H2S] y−1 AU−1 and for odour was 1.77 ± 3.06 OU y−1 AU−1. The EFs for the loose housing cow barn were 6.50 ± 4.01 kg [NH3] y−1 AU−1, 51.34 ± 30.34 g [H2S] y−1 AU−1 and for odour were 15.63 ± 20.96 OU y−1 AU−1. The NH3 and H2S EFs were validated through dispersion modelling against ambient levels measured in vicinity of the farms using passive samplers. An Eulerian advection-diffusion model with meteorological data was used to validate NH3 and H2S emission data. There was in general good correlation between measured and modelled levels for NH3 in both farms and for H2S in farm B. In general the EF were reliable and can be used in local and regional emission inventories and in dispersion calculations, but variation of emissions with temperature needs be taken into account. Further research is required to investigate emissions from more dairy farms over longer periods.

The levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in airborne particulate matter (PM) of urban aerosols were studied in Estonia. Samples of PM, particularly of the fine fractions (P 10 and PM 2.5 ), were taken from different locations in the capital city (Tallinn). The range of mean concentrations of 16 priority PAHs, according to the US EPA List in PM 2.5 was quantified from 2.5 to 6.2 ng/m 3 , including benzo[a]pyrene, 0.1–0.7 ng/m 3 . The composition of the PAHs fraction varied with the sampling location, that is, the pollution source characteristics. The domination of PAHs with molecular mass over 252, for example in decreasing order, Benzo[ghi]perylene, Indeno[1,2,3-cd]pyrene, Benzo[e]pyrene, Benzo[a]pyrene, Benzo[b]fluoranthene, Benzo[k]fluoranthene and Coronene in a busy traffic and industrial area of Tallinn gives an evidence that the non-road transport and treatment of stored fuel of a cargo port are significant source of emission.

There are huge world deposits of oil shale, however, little is known about the fate of atmospheric oil-shale combustion fly ash. In the present work, oil-shale combustion fly-ash aerosol was investigated under simulated daytime and nighttime conditions. Fly-ash particles collected from the Baltic Power Plant (Estonia) were injected directly to a 190 m3 outdoor Teflon film chamber. The initial concentration of particles was in the range from 15 to 20 mg/m3. Particle size distributions were monitored continuously by various optical and electrical devices. During the course of an experiment the particle phase was collected on filters, and the gas phase was collected using denuders. The initial aerosol mass concentration decreased quickly due to the deposition of larger particles. Since fine particles dominated the count distribution, the change in aerosol number concentration was less significiant than the mass concentration over time. Experimental data showed a bimodal particle size distribution with maximums at about 0.07 and 4 μm. SEM images of aerosol particles also provided particle shape and size distribution information. The respirable fraction of particles, which contributes most to the health effects of the aerosol, significantly increased during the experiment, being 25% by mass immediately after the injection of fly ash and achieving 65% at the end of the experiment. Results of CG/MS analysis confirm the presence of different polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the particle phase of the aerosol. Some of the individual compounds included phenanthrene, fluoranthene, pyrene, benz(a)anthracene, chrysene, benzo(b)fluoranthene, benzo(k)fluoranthene, and benzo(a)pyrene. Several PAHs were found in the gas phase of the chamber after fly ash had aged for 2 h, indicating that PAHs desorbed from the particles over time.

Ash generated by oil shale combustion contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) hazardous for environment and human health. The leaching of three- to four-ring PAHs sorbed on oil shale ash and zeolite NaA used as reference matter was investigated. The uptake of PAHs on ash was linearly correlated with the molecular surface area and K ow . The ash and zeolite have similar specific surface area and different characteristics of pores contribution to the total pore volume. The sorption capacity of ash for PAH was four times less than that of aluminosilicate. PAHs sorbed on ash particles leached more readily than those on zeolite. After 3 hr the amount of leached PAHs was 89.6% for phenanthrene and 30% for less-soluble anthracene. In field conditions during the disposing time, the mineral composition and sorptive capacity of ash may change and affect the mobility of PAHs.

Two typical Estonian soils, Brown pseudopodzolic and Rendzina, were used for sorption studies with pyrene. The soil samples were subjected to a variety of chemical and physical tests. The specific surface area reached 3.05 m2 g−1 for Rendzina, and 0.87 m2 g−1 for Brown pseudopodzolic soil. The Rendzina type of soil was characterized also by a high organic matter content (22.9%) compared with the Brown pseudopodzolic soil (6.64%). A batch technique was used to perform all adsorption studies. Koc values 2.7 × 104 mg g−1 for Rendzina and 4.5 × 104 mg g−1 for Brown pseudopodzolic were obtained. The results suggets that pyrene sorption behaviour could be in some instances mainly influenced by the composition of organic compounds in the soil, not so much by the overall organic matter content. Also the mineral part of the soil can have a impact to pyrene sorption through Ca-binded humic substances.

Photochemical transformation and adsorption of some polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, PAH, e.g., phenanthrene, anthracene and pyrene, on the different particulate matter: alumina, silica and oil-shale fly ash were investigated. Fly ash from oil-shale thermal power plants is characterised by a small specific surface area and a low adsorption capacity in comparison to commercial adsorbents. The surface on which PAH were adsorbed have a strong effect on their decay. The phototransformation efficiency of the PAH studied was largest for silica, followed by alumina. PAH were more resistant to photochemical transformation on fly ash than on alumina and silica. Variation in decay rates between the different PAH on any given matrix was found to be significant. Phenanthrene was much less photochemically reactive than pyrene, and especially anthracene, on any particulate matter used in this study. Nonphotochemical degradation (autoxidation) of PAH on alumina, silica and fly ash was found to be negligible. S...

This study is aimed to assess the health impacts of outdoor PM2.5 concentrations to entire population of Estonia. As the air quality monitoring network in Estonia is rather sparse (six urban, three rural and a few industrial sites), the exposure assessment was based on long-term modelling, controlled by monitoring data from existing stations. The model runs were performed with IairViro modelling system, including the Eulerian MATCH model for country-wide run with 5 km grid resolution and AirViro urban model with 200 m grid resolution for five major cities. The database of pollution sources includes industrial, transport and domestic heating emissions. The average annual PM2.5 concentrations were found 7–9 μg/m3 at most of rural and in 9–13 μg/m3 typically at urban areas, up to 30 μg/m3 in some parts of capital city Tallinn. To estimate the health risks, the base-line national health statistics and exposure-response coefficients from previous epidemiological studies (ACS, APHEIS), were applied. It was found that on average 600 (CI 95 % 155–1,061) premature deaths per year are caused by PM2.5 pollution in Estonia, which has population nearly 1.3 million. On average 5 months of life are lost, maximum 14 months in some parts of Tallinn. About 900 additional hospitalizations due to pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases occur per year.

Oil shale combustion fly ash collected to electric precipitators from pulverized firing (PF) and circulating fluidized bed combustion (CFB) processes was investigated in atmospheric chamber experiments. The aim of the work was to detect differences in the atmospheric behaviour of the fine particles from CFB and PF boilers of the Estonian Power Plant (PP), located close to Narva, Estonia. One series of experiments was performed in a dual outdoor Teflon film smog chamber (270 m 3 ) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA) under normal weather conditions (temperature, humidity, sunlight). Parallel tests were carried out in an outdoor smog chamber (108 m 3 ) at Tuulna, Harju County, Estonia, where the experiment was made under meteorological conditions similar to those at the location of the PP. The size distribution and number concentration of particles in the chamber were monitored during the experiment. The fractional distribution results demonstrate that the CFB aerosol in the chamber air had more fine particles than the PF aerosol. Approximately 2 h after injection the fly ash particles larger than 4 µm had settled out from both samples. The initial fly ash aerosol had a trimodal fractional distribution. Both PF and CFB fly ash formed stable aerosols 1-3 µm in diameter during the 6 h experiment and are therefore prone to long-range transport.

Background Health impact assessments (HIA) use information on exposure, baseline mortality/morbidity and exposure-response functions from epidemiological studies in order to quantify the health impacts of existing situations and/or alternative scenarios. The aim of this study was to improve HIA methods for air pollution studies in situations where exposures can be estimated using GIS with high spatial resolution and dispersion modeling approaches. Methods Tallinn was divided into 84 sections according to neighborhoods, with a total population of approx. 390 000 persons. Actual baseline rates for total mortality and hospitalization with cardiovascular and respiratory diagnosis were identified. The exposure to fine particles (PM2.5) from local emissions was defined as the modeled annual levels. The model validation and morbidity assessment were based on 2006 PM10 or PM2.5 levels at 3 monitoring stations. The exposure-response coefficients used were for total mortality 6.2% (95% CI 1.6–11%) per 10 μg/m3 increase of annual mean PM2.5 concentration and for the assessment of respiratory and cardiovascular hospitalizations 1.14% (95% CI 0.62–1.67%) and 0.73% (95% CI 0.47–0.93%) per 10 μg/m3 increase of PM10. The direct costs related to morbidity were calculated according to hospital treatment expenses in 2005 and the cost of premature deaths using the concept of Value of Life Year (VOLY). Results The annual population-weighted-modeled exposure to locally emitted PM2.5 in Tallinn was 11.6 μg/m3. Our analysis showed that it corresponds to 296 (95% CI 76528) premature deaths resulting in 3859 (95% CI 10236636) Years of Life Lost (YLL) per year. The average decrease in life-expectancy at birth per resident of Tallinn was estimated to be 0.64 (95% CI 0.17–1.10) years. While in the polluted city centre this may reach 1.17 years, in the least polluted neighborhoods it remains between 0.1 and 0.3 years. When dividing the YLL by the number of premature deaths, the decrease in life expectancy among the actual cases is around 13 years. As for the morbidity, the short-term effects of air pollution were estimated to result in an additional 71 (95% CI 43–104) respiratory and 204 (95% CI 131–260) cardiovascular hospitalizations per year. The biggest external costs are related to the long-term effects on mortality: this is on average €150 (95% CI 40–260) million annually. In comparison, the costs of short-term air-pollution driven hospitalizations are small €0.3 (95% CI 0.2–0.4) million. Conclusion Sectioning the city for analysis and using GIS systems can help to improve the accuracy of air pollution health impact estimations, especially in study areas with poor air pollution monitoring data but available dispersion models.