Source apportionments of ambient fine particulate matter in Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian cities

This manuscript evaluates spatial and temporal variations of source contributions to ambient fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) in Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian cities. Twenty-four hour integrated PM_2.5 samples were collected every six days over a 1-year period (January to December 2007) in four cities in Israel (West Jerusalem, Eilat, Tel Aviv, and Haifa), four cities in Jordan (Amman, Aqaba, Rahma, and Zarka), and three cities in Palestine (Nablus, East Jerusalem, and Hebron). The PM_2.5 samples were analyzed for major chemical components, including organic carbon and elemental carbon, ions, and metals, and the results were used in a positive matrix factorization (PMF) model to estimate source contributions to PM_2.5 mass. Nine sources, including secondary sulfate, secondary nitrate, mobile, industrial lead sources, dust, construction dust, biomass burning, fuel oil combustion and sea salt, were identified across the sampling sites. Secondary sulfate was the dominant source, contributing 35% of the total PM_2.5 mass, and it showed relatively homogeneous temporal trends of daily source contribution in the study area. Mobile sources were found to be the second greatest contributor to PM_2.5 mass in the large metropolitan cities, such as Tel Aviv, Hebron, and West and East Jerusalem. Other sources (i.e. industrial lead sources, construction dust, and fuel oil combustion) were closely related to local emissions within individual cities. This study demonstrates how international cooperation can facilitate air pollution studies that address regional air pollution issues and the incremental differences across cities in a common airshed. It also provides a model to study air pollution in regions with limited air quality monitoring capacity that have persistent and emerging air quality problems, such as Africa, South Asia and Central America.