Long-term study of NOx behavior at urban roadside and background locations in Seoul, Korea

In this study, the fundamental aspects governing the environmental behavior of nitrogen oxides were explored from two air quality-monitoring stations (AQM) in Seoul, Korea, over an 11-year period (1996–2006). The two stations were selected to represent an urban roadside (U-RS) and urban background station (U-BG). The mean concentration levels of NOx at the U-RS area exhibited a gradual decrease through years (from 290 ppb (1996) to 100 ppb (2003)), while those measured at the U-BG site maintained fairly stable values ( 70 ppb) throughout the years. The mean concentration levels of NO and NO2 at the U-BG site were almost the same ( 35 ppb), while the U-RS site showed that the mean value of NO ( 127 ppb) is significantly higher than that of NO2 ( 60 ppb). The observation of larger differences in NO level between the two sites reflects the direct impact of vehicular emissions at the U-RS site. Both correlation and factor analyses were conducted between the hourly data sets of NOx species (N= 90,000) and relevant environmental variables for both the sites. The results of both tests confirm the prominent role of vehicular activities in determining the level of nitrogen oxides at urban roadside environments, although such effects appear to be rather intricate at U-BG. Our comparative analysis of NOx data sets collected over varying temporal scales indicate that their distributions in the urban environment can be distinguished more clearly in spatial factors (i.e., between urban background and urban roadside) than other criteria.