Levels of particulate matter in rural, urban and industrial sites in Spain

This paper summarises the results of a series of studies on the interpretation of time series of levels of total suspended particles (TSP) and particulate matter (PM, <10 microm) in six regions of Spain in the period 1996-2000. In addition to the local pollution events, high PM10 episodes are recorded during African dust outbreaks, regional atmospheric recirculation events (mainly in spring to autumn), and to a lesser extent, under the influence of European and Mediterranean long range transported air masses. The lowest PM10 levels are usually recorded under Atlantic air mass advective conditions. All these regional and large-scale processes account for the relatively high PM10 levels recorded in regional background stations in Spain. Thus, the PM10 levels recorded at EMEP (Cooperative Program for Monitoring and Evaluation of the Long Range Transmission of Air Pollutants in Europe) regional background stations between March 2001 and March 2002 are very close to the annual limit value proposed for 2010 by the EU Air Quality Directive 1999/30/CE. Chemical data obtained for the different monitoring stations during 2001 show a high mineral load in PM10 for most of the study sites in Spain. Furthermore, a high marine aerosol load is evidenced in the Canary Islands. These mineral and marine loads are lower when considering PM2.5, but a relatively high proportion (8-21%) of mineral dust is still present.