Mapping NO2 pollution in Piedmont Region (Italy) using TROPOMI: preliminary results

Recently, numerous agencies and administrations in their latest reports show how it’s impossible to overlook the negative impact of atmospheric air pollution on human health. In this regard, it’s essential to be able to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of the concentration of main pollutants, and its ways to change. Among the numerous strategies proposed to tackle this problem, from the ’70s the study of satellite data assumed a key role, extending the analyzes carried out only with ground tools.

In this work we analyzed the data acquired by TROPOMI (TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument), a multispectral imaging spectrometer mounted onboard the ESA Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite (orbiting since October 2017) and specifically focused on mapping atmospheric composition. In particular, we processed the TROPOMI NO₂ products acquired over Piedmont Region (Italy) between 2018 and 2021.  We obtain preliminary results by comparing the satellite-derived tropospheric NO₂ columns data with ground-based NO₂ concentration acquired by the ARPA-Piemonte network in different urban and geomorphological contexts. In particular, we compared the TROPOMI-derived time series with the acquisitions of ground stations located in urban and suburban areas (e.g. in the city of Turin), identified as “traffic stations”, and in rural areas (low population density and countryside areas) identified as “background stations”. The results allow us to investigate the correlation and coherence between the two datasets and discuss the added values and limits of satellite data in different environmental contexts, with the prospective of providing NO₂ concentration maps of the Piedmont Region.