Lidar-assisted measurement of PM10 emissions from agricultural tilling in California's San Joaquin Valley - Part I: lidar

Vertical profiling with point samplers is an accepted method for quantifyin g the fluxes of PM,, from cion-point fugitive dust sources, but is limited by uncertainty in estimates of the actual height of the dust plume, especia lly for plumes that exceed the highest sampling height. Agricultural land p reparation operations in the San Joaquin Valley were monitored using upwind -downwind vertical PM10 profiles and data collected during the first succes sful experiment to include light detection and ranging (lidar), in 1998, we re analyzed to provide modeling criteria for the 1996 and 1997 data. A seri es of six comprehensive PM10 tests with concurrent lidar data was examined to: (a) develop a framework for analyzing upwind-downwind point PM10 concen tration profiles of land preparation operations (disking, listing, root cut ting, and ripping) and (b) identify conditions under which the field sampli ng strategies affect the reproducibility of PM10 concentration measurements . Lidar data were used to verify that the plume heights and shapes extrapol ated from the point sampler vertical profiles adequately described the plum es. The shortcomings of the vertical profiling technique and lidar methods are discussed in the light of developing efficient robust methods for accur ate PM10 emissions quantification from complex non-point sources. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.