Airborne dust composition in an industrialised area

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Abstract
Conventional and multivariate statistical techniques have been applied at Bilbao (Spain), a town close to a heavily industrialised area, for discussion of 1984's monthly averages airborne dust amount and composition in connection with meteorological and global pollution (SO2, reflectometric dust, deposition) data for the same year. Factor analysis, numerical taxonomy classification and linear multiple regression were mainly used for pollution background knowledge and for time dependence at the studied model zone. Results suggest associations mainly among the following groups: (i) most of the water soluble constituents (sulphates, nitrates, ammonia, Ca, Na, K); (ii) contaminants due to fuel combustion (particulates, benzene soluble fraction, SO2, V and supressively Ni and Mg); (iii) a few heavy metals (Pb, Mn, Cr), while some other components (chlorides, Fe, Cu, Cd) are less associated. Dependences both with global pollution and meteorological data and with time functions allow to obtain mathematical equations from which the monthly average contents of most of the studied pollutants may be estimated. The main parameters in these equations are the amount of airborne dust particulates, the frequency of raining and a seasonal time function. Nevertheless more research need to be done to obtain, for the studied zone, a more sophisticated model capable of predicting daily fluctuations.