Author(s)

S. Hykyšová & J. Brejcha

Abstract

In the past, due to air pollution, the North-Bohemian Brown Coal Basin used to belong to the famous zone called the \“Black Triangle” which also covered the lower parts of Silesia and Saxony. The air pollution was for the greatest part caused by large industrial sources where its impact on the forest ecosystems gained a cross-border character. At the beginning of 1990s, after reduction measures in industry and the implementation of stricter environmental laws, the air condition started to improve rapidly. Due to extensive opencast brown coal mining and the presence of large combustion resources the area is still classed as a region with a poor air quality mainly due to increased concentrations of dust particles. In recent years the increasing effect of local combustion sources on air pollution may be seen. Nevertheless the air pollution in small settlements has not been mapped sufficiently. The article is based on the data collected from mobile measurements of air purity executed within the remit of the subgroup \“emissions-immissions” of the research project \“Research of physical and chemical features affected by coal mining, its use and impact on environment in the North-Western Bohemia region”. The measurement was performed in the selected communities close to the opencast mines in the period 2004–2007. The aim was to evaluate the immissions status in the small settlements selected from the North-Bohemian region, to appraise the predicative value of collected results and prepare a methodology concept of mobile measurements to describe the local immission situation. This article extends the information gained from mobile measurement and the data from the stationary measuring stations and also takes into account significant sources of pollution such as coal power plants in the North-Bohemian Brown Coal Basin. The results collected during the series of measurements in the course of heating and non-heating seasons are simultaneously compared with the data regarding the manner of heating and type of the fuel used for heating in the communities. Keywords: air pollution, immissions, emissions, local combustion furnaces, air pollution monitoring, dust particles, PM10, coal opencast mining, Black Triangle.

Keywords

air pollution, immissions, emissions, local combustion furnaces, air pollution monitoring, dust particles, PM10, coal opencast mining, Black Triangle