Deposition monitoring, already in use by government control organizations of various countries, contributes to an important increase in experimental knowledge on pollutant deposition fluxes, on their environmental fate and on the possible effects on human health. At the European level, the necessity to consider with extreme attention the environmental contamination due to deposition, has brought to adopt a series of legislative measures and recommendations; this has contributed to set up environmental surveillance systems and monitoring campaigns for a series of pollutants which may accumulate in the environment as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and for metals. More recently, with DL.vo 155/2010, the necessity to consider, in the development of monitoring stations, the possibility to detect also data on deposition rates which represent a non-direct exposure of the population through the food chain. For sampling the Decree considers only two types of depositions: for total deposition (bulk and Bergerhoff) and wet only deposition.

Introduction. The increased use of incense, magic candles and other flameless products often produces indoor pollutants that may represent a health risk for humans. Today, in fact, incense and air fresheners are used inside homes as well as in public places including stores, shopping malls and places of worship. As a source of indoor contamination, the impact of smoke, incense and sparklers on human health cannot be ignored. Aim. In the present work, we report the results of an emission study regarding particles (PM10 and particle number concentration, PNC) and benzene, produced by various incense sticks and sparklers. Results and discussion.The results obtained for benzene, PM10 and PNC, showed a strong negative influence on air quality when these products were used indoors. Various incense sticks gave completely different benzene results: from a small increase of the benzene concentration in the air, just slightly above the background levels of ambient air, to very high concentrations, of more than 200 µg/m³ of benzene in the test room after the incense sticks had been tested.

The main objective of this study was to asses the temporal variation (1999 trough 2008) of air quality in Rome, focusing on airborn concentration of selected pollutants (PM10 and PM2.5 mass concentration and particle number concentration, PNC, carbon monoxide, CO, nitrogen oxides, NO and NO2) used for health effects assessment in epidemiological analyses. Time series analysis using Seasonal Kendall test has been applied. A statistically significant decreasing trend was found for primary gaseous pollutants and total particle number concentrations. Moreover a decreasing trend was assessed for PM10, PM2.5 and NO2 measured at traffic oriented sites even if the estimated reduction was lower compared with NO, CO and PNC. The urban background PM10 and NO2 concentrations seem to be practically unchanged since 1999 as no statistically significant trends were found. All the pollutants show higher slope of the estimated trend line at traffic oriented sites compared with those observed at the urban background. Thus a reduction of the intra-city concentration variability throughout the years occurred.

Il principale obiettivo di questo lavoro è stato quello di valutare la variazione nel tempo (dal 1999 al 2008) della qualità dell'aria a Roma, con particolare riferimento alle concentrazioni di alcuni inquinanti aerodispersi (concentrazione di massa del PM10 e del PM2.5, concentrazione numerica delle particelle, PNC, monossido di carbonio, CO, ossidi di azoto, NO e NO2) usate negli studi epidemiologici per valutare gli effetti sulla salute correlati all'esposizione. La stima dei trend è stata eseguita usando il test non parametrico di Kendall corretto per la stagionalità. È stato individuato un trend statisticamente significativo di riduzione delle concentrazioni degli inquinanti gassosi primari (NO, CO) e del numero di particelle (PNC). Un trend statisticamente significativo di riduzione è stato individuato anche per PM10, PM2.5 e NO2 limitatamente ai siti di monitoraggio orientati al traffico, sebbene meno rilevante rispetto a quanto osservato per NO, CO e PNC. I livelli di concentrazione di PM10 e NO2 nel sito di fondo urbano sembrano invece rimanere praticamente invariati dal 1999 e non è possibile individuare alcun trend statisticamente significativo. Poiché per tutti gli inquinanti è stata evidenziata una pendenza maggiore della linea di tendenza stimata nelle stazioni di traffico rispetto a quella di fondo, è possibile concludere che nel corso degli anni si è verificata una riduzione della variabilità spaziale dell'esposizione all'interno della città.