PARTICULATE MATTER AND BLACK CARBON DURING THE

BIOMASS BURNING SEASON IN THE LLANOS SAVANNAS

Juliana Hernández, Luis Morales, Rodrigo Jiménez

Air Quality Research GroupDepartment of Chemical and Environmental Engineering

Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Grupo de Investigación en Calidad del Aire Facultad de ingeniería –Sede Bogotá

Biomass burning in the Llanos Region

• Periodic biomass burning (natural and

anthropogenic)

• Biomass burning emitted particles: Genotoxic

effects on human alveolar cells (de Oliveira Alves

et al., 2014)

• Burned area, just Colombian Llanos: 2.75

Mha/year

(Romero-Ruiz et al., 2010)

WHAT IS THE AIR QUALITY IMPACT OF EMISSIONS FROM BIOMASS

BURNING IN THE COLOMBIAN ORINOCO SAVANNAS?

Active fires during 2016-2017 dry season and back

trajectories (Hysplit model) for January 5, 2017 from Yopal,

Arauca and Villavicencio

Grupo de Investigación en Calidad del Aire Facultad de ingeniería –Sede Bogotá

• Two measurement campaigns

• Chemical composition of PM

• Analysis of PM and O3 measurements in Arauca and Yopal

Evidences of the impact of fire emission in the Orinoco region’s air quality

• Development of a methodologyappropiate for biomass burningemissions for atmosphericmodeling

Emission inventory

• Meteorological simulations usingWRF

• Backward Lagrangian modeling

Contribution of fire emissions to atmospheric PM levels

Methodology

Grupo de Investigación en Calidad del Aire Facultad de ingeniería – Sede Bogotá

Active fires during measurement campaigns

MC1 MC3

MC2

MC1 MC2 MC3 Moderate biomass burning Intense biomass burning Effect of biomass burning in Venezuela

Baseline

Grupo de Investigación en Calidad del Aire Facultad de ingeniería – Sede Bogotá

Measurement campaign #1� Beginning of the dry season

December 5th -18th 2014

� Middle of the dry season

January 31st – February 14th 2015

La LibertadPM10 Harvard Impactor (Quartz)

PM10 Harvard Impactors(Teflon)

UNAL AraucaPM10 Harvard Impactor (Quartz)

PM10 Harvard Impactors(Teflon)

Taluma

• Hi-Vol PM10 (Quartz)

• PM10 Harvard Impactor(Teflón)

• Beta attenuation automatic sampler (MP101, Environnement

SA)

• Weather station

Grupo de Investigación en Calidad del Aire Facultad de ingeniería – Sede Bogotá

MC1: Moderate biomass burning

Libertad Arauca Taluma

13.1±1.4 11.2 ±3.2 17.3±1.1

Average PM10 concentrations (µg/m³)

36.8

16.8

31.4

December: Low biomass burning activity

Relativehumidity(%)

Solar Radiation(W/m2)

WindSpeed(m/s)

Rain(mm)

Dry period

024681012141618

05

1015202530354045

00 12 00 12 00 12 00 12 00 12 00 12 00 12 00 12 00 12 00 12 00 12 00 12 00 12 00 12 00

ene-31 feb-01 feb-02 feb-03 feb-04 feb-05 feb-06 feb-07 feb-08 feb-09 feb-10 feb-11 feb-12 feb-13 feb-14

Pre

cipi

tatio

n (m

m)

PM

10 C

once

ntra

tion

(µg/

m³)

Date - time

16.8 (µg/m³) 17.9(µg/m³)

31.4 (µg/m³)31.4 (µg/m³)

MC1: MC1: MC1: MC1: ModerateModerateModerateModerate biomassbiomassbiomassbiomass burningburningburningburning

Meteorological

conditions

PM10

Taluma

~ 14 µg/m³

Enhancement

Grupo de Investigación en Calidad del Aire Facultad de ingeniería – Sede Bogotá

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

ma

r-2

3 0

7

ma

r-2

3 1

0

ma

r-2

3 1

1

ma

r-2

3 1

4

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r-2

3 1

6

ma

r-2

4 0

9

ma

r-2

4 1

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r-2

4 1

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r-2

4 1

4

ma

r-2

4 1

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ma

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AOD Total_500nm AOD Fine mode_500nm AOD coarse mode _500 nm

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0.4

0.6

0.8

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6 0

8

ma

y-2

6 1

5

ma

y-2

6 1

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-01

12

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-06

16

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-10

14

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-12

15

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16

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-19

07

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-20

09

jun

-23

16

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-24

07

jun

-24

16

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-30

16

jul-

01

15

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Simultaneous measurements of Aerosol Optical Depth and PM10

PM10: 27.4 µg/m³

• Photometer – AERONET station (UNC-Gaitan)

• PM10 sampler – Taluma station - March 21st – March

24th

Bogotá-2013

0.3

UNC-Gaitan

Grupo de Investigación en Calidad del Aire Facultad de ingeniería – Sede Bogotá

Measurement campaign #2: intense biomass burning period

Taluma

18.1 ± 2.9 µg/m³

43.6± 9.9 µg/m³

34.2± 6.5 µg/m³

Feb. 3rd

Libertad Taluma

42.7 µg/m³ 68.8 µg/m³

Enhancement: 21 µg/m³

Enhancement: 26 µg/m³

Maximum

concentrations

December: Low biomass burning activity

Grupo de Investigación en Calidad del Aire Facultad de ingeniería – Sede Bogotá

Chemical composition of PM10: biomass burning tracers

High correlation between PM10, BC and K + constitutes a strong evidence of the influence ofbiomass burning emissions in PM10 levels

CONCENTRATIONS IN THE LLANOS VS. BOGOTA

Group Period

Libertad_ECALB1a1 December 12-18, 2014

Low impact of fire and soil dust

emissions

Taluma_ECALB2a1 December 15-19, 2015

Low impact of fire and soil dust

emissions

Taluma_ECALB2a December 14-15, December 19-21,

2015

Low impact of fire emissions. Some

impact of soil dust emissions.

Libertad_ECALB1 January 20 – February 16, 2015

BB & Soil dust

Libertad_ECALB2 January 25- February 13, 2016

BB & Soil dust

Taluma_ECALB2 BB & Soil dust

Bog_DS

Bogotá – Universidad Libre

(Ramírez et al., 2018)

Urban background site.Dry season

Bog_DS2

(Suba)(Vargas et al., 2012)

Commercial activities and paved and

unpaved roads

Bog_RS

Bogotá (Ramírez et al., 2018)

Urban background site.Rainy seaon

Grupo de Investigación en Calidad del Aire Facultad de ingeniería – Sede Bogotá

Fire and dust emissions

Fire-driven emissions of mineral dust

(Wagner et al., 2018)

Taluma

ECALB2

Libertad

ECALB1

Grupo de Investigación en Calidad del Aire Facultad de ingeniería – Sede Bogotá

CONCLUSIONS

• Air quality in the Llanos region significantly deteriorates during the biomass burning period.

• PM10 levels are substantially increased during the biomass burning period. Concentrations with little fire activity range between 11-17 µg/m³. During intense biomass burning there were concentrations up to 68 µg/m³, and enhancements on average concentrations that range from 23 – 26 µg/m³.

• PM10 enhancements were closely related enhancements of biomass burning tracers (BC, K+) and dust tracers.

Grupo de Investigación en Calidad del Aire Facultad de ingeniería – Sede Bogotá

AKCNOWLEDGEMENTS

• This research was funded by Colciencias (Grant number1101-569-35161) and Universidad Nacional de Colombia

• Corpoica and Grupo ALIAR for their logistic supportduring the measurement campaigns.

THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION

Grupo de Investigación en Calidad del Aire Facultad de ingeniería – Sede Bogotá

BC and BC/PM10