Intraurban Variation of Fine Particle Elemental Concentrations in New York City

Few past studies have collected and analyzed within-city variation of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) elements. We developed land-use regression (LUR) models to characterize spatial variation of 15 PM2.5 elements collected at 150 street-level locations in New York City during December 2008-November 2009: aluminum, bromine, calcium, copper, iron, potassium, manganese, sodium, nickel, lead, sulfur, silicon, titanium, vanadium, and zinc. Summer- and winter-only data available at 99 locations in the subsequent 3 years, up to November 2012, were analyzed to examine variation of LUR results across years. Spatial variation of each element was modeled in LUR including six major emission indicators: boilers burning residual oil; traffic density; industrial structures; construction/demolition (these four indicators in buffers of 50 to 1000 m), commercial cooking based on a dispersion model; and ship traffic based on inverse distance to navigation path weighted by associated port berth volume. All the elements except sodium were associated with at least one source, with R(2) ranging from 0.2 to 0.8. Strong source-element associations, persistent across years, were found for residual oil burning (nickel, zinc), near-road traffic (copper, iron, and titanium), and ship traffic (vanadium). These emission source indicators were also significant and consistent predictors of PM2.5 concentrations across years.