Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Journal of Young Scientist", Vol. 5
Written by Özgür ZEYDAN, Beste Nur KARAKAYA
Turkey, as a European Union (EU) candidate country, is harmonising the air quality limits to meet EU standards. For this reason, PM10 limit value is being reducing in yearly intervals till 2019 when daily PM10 limit value of 50 µg/m3 will be met.On the other hand, as the limit value decreases, the air quality of Turkish cities are being considered as polluted. The aim of this paper is to present the PM10 exceedance events in Turkey between 2014 and 2016. The daily measured PM10 concentrations were obtained from National Air Quality Monitoring Network of Turkey. We calculated the number of exceedance events. Then, we created thematic maps to evaluate the PM10 exceedances both spatial and temporal. There is an increasing trend in total number of cities where the PM10 threshold is exceeded. Moreover, there exist a decreasing trend in the number of cities in which no PM10 exceedance events occurred.It would be difficult for Turkey to meet EU PM10 standards in 2019 unless certain precautions are applied. At the end of the paper, there are some suggestions to reduce PM10 emissions and to meet threshold value.
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