Americas Program: Receptor Modeling of Atmospheric Deposition at the Great Lakes Integrated Atmospheric Deposition (IADN) Stations

9600384 Landsberger This Americas Program award will fund travel expenses to Canada for Dr. Sheldon Landsberger, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, to conduct a study on the atmospheric deposition of toxic materials in the Great Lakes. His collaborator will be Dr. Raymond Meyer Hoff, of the Atmospheric Environment Service (AES) of Canada. The main objective is to develop a multi-element data set on air samples collected by the U.S.-Canada Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Network (IADN). The IADN has stations on site on each of the Great Lakes to provide an estimate of overall regional inputs of toxic materials, including trace metals, from the atmosphere to the Lakes. A program of chemical analysis and receptor modeling is proposed in which samples obtained at the IADN sites will be used to estimate the sources and source/regions of trace elements deposition in the Great Lakes, and the effects of specific urban areas on the airborne particulate matter compositions. The atmospheric concentrations of many toxic trace elements in the Great Lakes area has risen dramatically in recent decades to the point where they pose a potential threat to public health and the environment. Atmospheric deposition of toxic materials downwind from large urban areas is a potentially important input to the Lakes which has not been addressed by the IADN. The proposed research will directly address this problem through a source-receptor modeling program for particle-size distribution. ***