Distribution of photochemical oxidants and their precursors in an area of the Spanish Mediterranean coast

The Spanish Mediterranean coast has certain characteristics such as a great number of solar hours and numerous emissions of atmospheric pollutants of anthropogenic and biogenic sources which favour the production of photochem ical oxidants. The zone studied was the coastal and inland area of Castellon,eastern coast of Spain. It is an agricultural area with an industrial zone where mainly citrus fruits are produced. It is affected by local cycles of winds, sea-br eeze flows and a thermal low formation during the summer. The main objetive was to obtain data on levels of photochemical pollutants and their precurs ors in different test sites which help in understaning the processes that t ake place in this Mediterranean area. In this work, we dicuss the measureme nts of VOC's,terpenes, carbonyl compounds, PAN, NOx and ozone in ambient ai r. The values were obtained from different sampling points along the coast and in the inland in several campaigns over some years.