Variability of ambient air ammonia in urban Europe (Finland, France, Italy, Spain, and the UK).

This study addressed the scarcity of NH ₃ measurements in urban Europe and the diverse monitoring protocols, hindering direct data comparison. Sixty-nine datasets from Finland, France, Italy, Spain, and the UK across various site types, including industrial (IND, 8), traffic (TR, 12), urban (UB, 22), suburban (SUB, 12), and regional background (RB, 15), are analyzed to this study. Among these, 26 sites provided 5, or more, years of data for time series analysis. Despite varied protocols, necessitating future harmonization, the average NH ₃ concentration across sites reached 8.0 ± 8.9 μg/m ³ . Excluding farming/agricultural hotspots (FAHs), IND and TR sites had the highest concentrations (4.7 ± 3.2 and 4.5 ± 1.0 μg/m ³ ), followed by UB, SUB, and RB sites (3.3 ± 1.5, 2.7 ± 1.3, and 1.0 ± 0.3 μg/m ³ , respectively) indicating that industrial, traffic, and other urban sources were primary contributors to NH ₃ outside FAH regions. When referring exclusively to the FAHs, concentrations ranged from 10.0 ± 2.3 to 15.6 ± 17.2 μg/m ³ , with the highest concentrations being reached in RB sites close to the farming and agricultural sources, and that, on average for FAHs there is a decreasing NH ₃ concentration gradient towards the city. Time trends showed that over half of the sites (18/26) observed statistically significant trends. Approximately 50 % of UB and TR sites showed a decreasing trend, while 30 % an increasing one. Meta-analysis revealed a small insignificant decreasing trend for non-FAH RB sites. In FAHs, there was a significant upward trend at a rate of 3.51[0.45,6.57]%/yr. Seasonal patterns of NH ₃ concentrations varied, with urban areas experiencing fluctuations influenced by surrounding emissions, particularly in FAHs. Diel variation showed differing patterns at urban monitoring sites, all with higher daytime concentrations, but with variations in peak times depending on major emission sources and meteorological patterns. These results offer valuable insights into the spatio-temporal patterns of gas-phase NH ₃ concentrations in urban Europe, contributing to future efforts in benchmarking NH ₃ pollution control in urban areas.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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