African dust contribution on the PM10 daily exceedances occurred in Apulia region

The air quality 2008/50/EC directive allows providing evidence of PM10 daily limit value exceedances due to natural sources, which are not to be considered for the purpose of the directive. In this work the African outbreaks, affecting the PM10 exceeding events occurred in Apulia region during 2010, are identified as follows. The PM10 daily concentrations were measured by the regional air quality monitoring stations, and complemented with meteorological maps, air mass back-trajectories, aerosol satellite retrievals, dust model simulations, ground measurements of aerosol optical properties. To quantify the daily net African dust load in PM10, we applied a methodology designed by the European Commission and based on the analysis of PM10 levels time series from regional background stations.