A summer and winter apportionment of particulate matter at urban and rural areas in northern France

The apportionment of atmospheric aerosols undertaken in Northern France during two sampling campaigns allowed to determine the influence of the atmospheric contribution of a heavy industrialized urban center on the particulate matter composition at a nearby rural site. The concentrations of major components and trace elements sampled by bulk filtration have been determined on June–July 2000 and January–February 2001, and the comparison of these two campaigns shows very well the importance of wind directions. The sources of 10 trace elements (Al, Ba, Cu, Fe, K, Mn, Pb, Sr, Ti and Zn) and 7 major components (Cl−, NO3−, SO42−, NH4+, Na, Mg and Ca) are better identified by studying their elemental contribution at each sampling site according to wind sectors. This kind of study shows that the concentrations recorded at the urban sampling site are always higher than those observed at the rural site as well during the summer campaign (about + 35%) as during the winter campaign (+ 90%), because of the predominance of the W–NW wind sector, corresponding to the influence of the urban and industrialized areas.