Air Pollutant Transport Analysis Based on Hourly Winds in the City of La Plata and Surroundings, Argentina

The city of La Plata and its surroundings are a very populated area, which has an important Industrial Pole and intense traffic activity but environmental studies have been rare so far. This article presents and discusses the importance of wind frequencies and velocities for the transport of air pollutants. The study emphasizes the importance of knowing wind patterns on an hourly basis that can be helpful for designing a monitoring network as well as for preventing exposure to pollutants. Correlation between monthly SO₂ concentrations and wind frequencies and velocities are discussed for a particular set of directions NNW–NE that carry pollutants from industrial sources toward populated areas. As a result, averaged wind frequencies have been found to be very important for determining patterns influencing pollutants transport; the influence of averaged velocities has shown low variability (hourly and monthly). Hierarchical cluster analysis applied to wind roses provided a useful approach for analyzing and describing the general daily occurrence of winds.