983701 - Air Quality in the Port of Veracruz, Mexico.

The Port of Veracruz is located In the coastal area of the Gulf of Mexico, one of the most important in the country and in which expansion work has been carried out since 2014, which will allow the activities of the Port Area to be increased and will favor the country's economy. In addition to the economic development of the region, it is necessary to consider that ships represent a potential source of air pollution for coastal communities and their contribution by emissions of gases and particles from maritime transport can have a negative impact on air quality. In this research work, the estimation of emissions was carried out by applying emission factors (EF) from ships in the hotelling phase of important pollutants such as criteria, toxics and greenhouse gases (GHG); of which results of real-time air quality monitoring for SO2 and PM2.5 will be presented for one year (October 2019 to October 2020). The air quality and meteorology monitoring station is located within the Veracruz Port Area in order to determine the spatio-temporal variation of atmospheric pollutants during the expansion and operation activities. In December 2019, present days that coincide in the increase of the species of interest and also appear on some days in February and March, registering two days with SO2 concentrations of 2.5 and 2.3 ppb, being the highest concentration recorded during the year and compared with its ambient air quality standard (AAQS) established for periods of 24 hours (40 ppb) comply with current environmental regulations. Regarding the concentrations registered for PM2.5 in the months of April and June (56 and 60 µg /m3 respectively), they exceeded its AAQS which establishes a concentration of 45 µg /m3 for 24 hours. Regarding the SO2 estimated emissions, ships with rolling cargo (also called RO-RO) in the months of January and February presented a greater contribution, while container ships increased it as of April. Concentrations can be directly related to combustion processes by mobile sources that occur in the region derived from port activity, which have increased since April, after a period of confinement derived from the COVID 19 pandemic.