Environmental and Health Risk Assessment of Particulate Matter Associated With Dusty Football Field - Environmental and Health Risk Assessment of Particulate Matter Associated With Dusty Football Field - Open Access Pub

Over the decades there have been problems associated with Particulate Matter (PM) arising from anthropogenic activities. Evaluation and health risk assessment of PM associated with football field was carried out in 5 sampling locations, including the control station. Digital portable AEROCET 513 (Metone instrument) PM meter was used for the evaluation Results showed levels of PM for; PM1.0(13.73 – 20.18 μg/m3), PM2.5 (19.11 – 28.83 μg/m3), PM4.0 (24.73 – 44.63 μg/m3), PM7.0 (41.07 – 67.04 μg/m3), and PM10 ranging from 65.48 – 90.82 μg/m3. In addition, value of the control station was lowest amongst all recorded values of PM (p<0.05). Based on Air Quality Index evaluation, the football fields were predominantly rated as unhealthy, with other cases rates as; hazardous and unsafe for sensitive group. This investigation therefore concludes that the emission of PM from the football field are reflection of vehicular emissions and agitated dust particles. Hence mitigable measure must be applied without much ado, in order to ameliorate the daily chronic exposure to PM. DOI10.14302/issn.2641-7669.ject-19-2595 Air pollution is the release of substances that are capable of infringing on ambient quality of the air 1, 2. The adverse effects of the pollutant might be acute or chronic, depending on the on the specie, concentration, physical, biological or chemical properties of the pollutant 3. Pollution is also seen as a process that involves the infringement of the environment by substances capable of inducing adverse effects to the environment including other forms of biota 4, 5, 6. Air pollutants includes organic or inorganic agents such as particulate matter, microbes, heavy metals, metabolites etc 2. Statistically, on annual basis there are over two million global cases of mortality linked to air pollution, with adverse effects on the respiratory system 7. Furthermore, most cases of mortalities were due to emission of fine PM whose size is less than 2.5 μm in diameter 7, 8. Particulate matter is a compounding aggregation of solid or liquid particulates that is suspended or persistent in the air over a period of time. Particulate matter vary in sizes, notwithstanding, they are broadly characterized as fine (≤2.5 μm), and coarse PM whose diameter is greater than 2.5 μm. Finer PM poses more health problems due to their ability to penetrate the lung as opposed to coarse and larger PM 8. For instance, PM1.0 which is a fine PM and rated as the most lethal, with cases of infant mortality and heart problems 9. As established in literature by Araújo et al., 1, in the