Evaluation of air quality in Suceava, Romania

In cities the chemical parameters of the urban atmosphere are being influenced, mainly negatively, by the daily human activities. The urban agglomeration of Suceava (from the NE of Romania) amounted to 116404 inhabitants as per the census from 2011. Their quality of life depends directly on the quality of the air inhaled, and this is being affected by the variable emissions of the transport and industrial sectors and by the household activities. The Municipality of Suceava is an important commercial center and, at the same time, a tourist city.

The general objective of the study consists in the evaluation of the air quality of Suceava Municipality, on the basis of the hourly data from the stations SV1 (urban background) and SV2 (industrial background) from the interval January 2009 - October 2019, on the basis of five chemical indicators: NO2, SO2, CO, O3 and PM10. The main objectives are: i) the identification of the fluctuations in time of the daily or hourly average concentrations of these emissions with the outlining of their daily or annual regime; ii) the comparison of the air quality in the neighbourhoods with residential function from the central and central-southern areas (Zamca, Marasesti, George Enescu, Areni, Obcini and so on) with the one from the industrial platform vicinity, and iii) the releasing of some accurate evaluations based on data from monitoring, which to classify in different levels of quality the air breathed in by humans.

Results. In Suceava the concentrations of NO2 (with hourly indices of quality evaluated as being excellent in 96,51% of cases at SV1 and 93,51% of cases at SV2), SO2 (with hourly indices of quality evaluated as being excellent in 99,79% of cases at SV1 and 99,03% of cases at SV2) and CO (with indices of excellent quality of the air in 99,78% of the hours of observations at SV1 and 97,32% at SV2) are not capable to raise real problems from the perspective of their impact on human health. In the case of O3, in 1,67% of the hours of observations from SV1 the concentration of this gas exceeded the target value for the protection of human health (120 μg/mc). The situation is not alarming due to the reduce percentage held by these situations and to the limitation of the areal to a single monitoring point. In the case of PM10 the concentration does not raise problems at SV1 station where the proportion of time with exceedings of the daily limit value for human health protection is on average 1,3 days/year^-1, but at SV2 the daily limit values are being exceeded in 35 day/year¹. The interval October - March, with thermal inversions, persistent fog and low stratiform clouds, is the critical one related to this pollutant.

Conclusions. On the background of the industrial decline that followed after 1989, the quality of the air from the atmosphere of Suceava has increased. The problem of the particles in the areal of the industrial platform and Burdujeni neighbourhood stays a current one.