Air Quality Assessment and Particulate Matter Source Apportionment
Summary
Air quality assessment encompasses the measurement, analysis and interpretation of airborne pollutants, with particular focus on particulate matter (PM) fractions such as PM2.5 and PM10. These fine and coarse particles originate from both primary emissions—such as combustion processes, industry, traffic and natural dust—and secondary formation through atmospheric chemical reactions. Source apportionment seeks to disentangle these contributions by combining detailed chemical characterisation of ambient PM with statistical or receptor modelling techniques. By identifying distinct source profiles and quantifying their relative mass contributions, policymakers can target emission controls effectively. Globally, source apportionment studies have revealed the importance of region-specific sources: for example, monsoonal wind shifts in tropical Asia alter the balance between mineral dust, sea salt and combustion-derived aerosols, while seasonal biomass burning plumes can elevate PM2.5 to hazardous levels in urban and rural settings alike. Advances in high-resolution sampling, chemical speciation (including organic molecular tracers and elemental ratios) and multivariate analyses now permit more accurate mass closure and differentiation between traffic, industrial, biogenic and long-range transport sources. Such insights underpin air quality management strategies, inform health impact assessments and support the design of mitigation measures that account for local meteorology, economic activity and population exposure patterns.
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Air Quality Assessment and Particulate Matter Source Apportionment publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in air quality assessment and particulate matter source apportionment across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Positive Matrix Factorisation (PMF): A receptor-modelling technique that decomposes observed pollutant concentration data into statistically derived source profiles and their mass contributions.
Chemical Mass Closure (CMC): A method of reconciling the sum of measured chemical species in particulate samples with the total PM mass to infer unmeasured components and validate source-apportionment results.
Biomass Burning Tracers: Organic molecular markers—such as levoglucosan and potassium ions—used to identify and quantify contributions from combustion of vegetation and agricultural residues.
Secondary Inorganic Aerosol (SIA): Particulate species formed in the atmosphere through gas-phase reactions of inorganic precursors (sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and ammonia), yielding sulphate, nitrate and ammonium salts.
References
- Fine particulate matter in the tropical environment: monsoonal effects, source apportionment, and health risk assessment. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (2016).
- Seasonal variability of PM2.5 composition and sources in the Klang Valley urban-industrial environment. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (2016).
- Airborne particulate matter from biomass burning in Thailand: Recent issues, challenges, and options. Heliyon (2023).
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