Assessment of air pollutants in urban recreation areas of Fortaleza city

Abstract

Disorganized urban growth has generated many problems in large urban centers, especially reducing the environmental comfort of the local population. Public administration is increasingly searching to mitigating these problems and improving the population quality of life through sustainable management, as the input of Urban Recreation Areas (URA). Fortaleza city is 5° largest federation capital, in population amount. It has a fleet of more than 1 million vehicles. URAs have been installed in many Fortaleza city´s zone, aiming to offer leisure and recreation areas to the local population. Air quality in these URA is unknown due to the monitoring actions is a deficiency, essentially during a physical activity local. This work aims to monitor atmospheric species, NO₂, NH₃, SO_2, and H₂S, in the 13 URA (different zone) using the typical portable system. Results showed that the concentrations of gases detected in the monitored days were (μg.m^-3): 2.58-18.48 of NO₂; 0.18-3.36 of SO₂; 2.78-11.07 of NH₃, and 0.76-7.53 of H₂S. Significant reductions of NO₂ (41%) and NH₃ (60%) concentrations were observed at the weekends as a result of vehicular traffic reduction. Also, the monitoring of air quality in URA may suggest and/or support public policies to control the air pollution of Fortaleza city.

Keywords:
Atmospheric pollution; Monitoring; Urban environment