Péter SIPOS¹ & Zoltán MAY^2
1Institute for Geological and Geochemical Research, Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, H-1112 Budapest, Budaörsi út 45, Hungary; e-mail: sipos@geochem.hu
²Institute of Materials and Environmental Chemistry, Research Centre of Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, H-1025 Budapest, Pusztaszeri út 59-67, Hungary

VERTICAL DISTRIBUTION OF METAL DEPOSITION RATES NEXT TO A MAJOR URBAN ROAD IN BUDAPEST, HUNGARY

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Dust and metal deposition are of important significance as an indicator of local air quality.However, their vertical deposition characteristics at greater heights are not well known. Settling dustsamples were collected at four heights and at both sides of a 40 meters high building next to a busy urbanroad in Budapest, Hungary. In this study, concentrations and monthly deposition rates of nine elementsare (Ba, Ca, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Pb, Sr, Zn) evaluated. The study site can be characterized by average settlingdust load showing a slight seasonal variation. Highest contamination was found for Cu, Pb and Zn. Thesources of these metals could be the traffic and the weathering of materials of the built environment. Theenrichment of these metals is generally the highest at the road-side of the building and at lower samplingheights, but Pb and Zn may show strong enrichment even at 33 m and at the low-traffic side of thebuilding. This is generally the highest in the dry and windy periods suggesting the dominance of the resuspensionof urban soil and road dust in the metal deposition. The vertical dust and metal depositionpatterns mostly correspond to the supposed air-flow model but just in case of highest chance of resuspensiona special model is needed to clearly describe the deposition patterns. This is probably due tothe simultaneous effect of weather conditions and the morphology of natural and built environment.