IAEA/RCA Regional Training Course on ‘Source Components and Visibility and Introduction to Back Trajectories’ concerning the RCA project on ‘characterization and source identification of particulate air pollution in the Asia region’ is to be held in cooperation with the Government of Malaysia through Malaysia Nuclear Agency on 9-13 June in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Pollution caused by airborne particulate matter (APM) is now being recognized as a local, regional and global problem with a serious impact on human health, particularly that of the young and the aged, on visibility, and on climate change. Air pollution generated in one region or country is often not restricted to that area but has an impact in adjacent countries or even across whole regions of the globe. Asia has its own specific air pollution issues, one example being the anthropogenic Asian Brown Haze, and a second being Asian Dust, a phenomenon with natural origins in wind conditions over deserts in Mongolia and northern and western China. Major problems of this kind call for a regional approach to be adopted by the countries affected. The Asian region also has many local forms of air pollution, originating in such urban and industrial sources as highly pollutant two-stroke motor vehicles and inadequately monitored diesel buses. The sensitive and speedy nuclear techniques of neutron activation analysis, X-ray fluorescence, and iron beam analysis and proton-induced X-ray emission respectively are unique tools for determining the character of APM. This type of data is ideally suited to source identification, source appointment, and trans-boundary modeling.

The overall objective of the RCA project on ‘characterization and source identification of particulate air pollution in the Asia region’ is to contribute to the improvement of air quality in the RCA region by applying NATs to the assessment of APM pollution. The specific objectives are: 1) to obtain sufficient long-term data on fine and course APM to identify the anthropogenic and natural pollution sources and to assess the extent of their impact, 2) to obtain sufficient high-quality data from a sufficient number of Member States within the region covering the same time frame to facilitate a study of larger-scale trans-boundary pollution and transportation sources, and 3) to create a reliable high-quality region wide data base that will enable government air-quality managers to make informed decisions on pollution abatement and control strategies.

For additional information please contact Dr Abdul Kadir Bin Ishak at abdul_kadir@nuclearmalaysia.gov.my.