Status and Trend of the Main Allergenic Pollen Grains and Alternaria Spores in the City of Rome (2003–2019)

Today a large part of the European population is exposed to levels of air pollution exceeding the standards recommended by the World Health Organization. Moreover, air pollution and the seasonal emission of allergenic pollen are progressively affecting human health and can cause severe allergic reac...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability 2023-04, Vol.15 (7), p.6150
Main Authors: Di Menno di Bucchianico, Alessandro, Gaddi, Raffaela, Brighetti, Maria Antonia, De Franco, Denise, Miraglia, Annarosa, Travaglini, Alessandro
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Air pollution
Air quality
Air quality assessments
Air quality criteria
Air quality standards
Allergens
Allergic reactions
Allergies
Alternaria
Anthropogenic factors
Environmental monitoring
Flowering
Hypersensitivity
Hypotheses
International standardization
International standards
Outdoor air quality
Pollen
Pollutants
Quality assessment
Quality control
Spores
Taxa
Time series
Trends
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Summary:Today a large part of the European population is exposed to levels of air pollution exceeding the standards recommended by the World Health Organization. Moreover, air pollution and the seasonal emission of allergenic pollen are progressively affecting human health and can cause severe allergic reactions, particularly when air pollution combines with pollen allergen peaks. Unlike atmospheric pollutants of anthropogenic origin, pollen sources have a pulsating trend that leads to high values in the flowering period and values close to, or equal to, zero in the rest of the year. This aspect makes essential the definition of data coverage standards for the main allergenic taxa. For air quality assessment detailed classification criteria for monitoring stations are defined by international standards, not the same from the European Standards for the Sampling and analysis of airborne pollen grains and fungal spores. This paper describes the status and the air concentration trends of the main allergenic pollen and the Alternaria spore measured in Rome from 2003 to 2019 by the Aerobiological Monitoring Center of Tor Vergata (Rome) and calculated by the Seasonal Kendall test with the open-source OpenAir R package. The analysis was carried out on the daily concentrations of the most widespread allergenic taxa in Italy: Asteraceae, Betulaceae, Corylaceae, Cupressaceae/Taxaceae, Poaceae, Oleaceae, Urticaceae and the Alternaria spores.
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su15076150