Bosnia and Herzegovina is facing a wide range of challenges regarding air quality.
The country’s residents are exposed to the high levels of health-damaging
particulate air pollution which are caused by a range of different emission sources
and geographic circumstances.
The particulate matter (PM) value is usually used to indicate the degree of air
pollution. In addition to that of PM2.5 and PM10, the use of the PM2.5 /PM10 ratio as
an indicator and assessor of air pollution has also become more widespread. This
ratio reflects the air pollution conditions and pollution sources. However, the
application of the ratio needs its varying pattern because PM concentrations change
significantly at time and space. Hourly and daily PM2.5 and PM10 observations at
one monitoring site in the urban area, one urban-background site, and one urbanindustrial site in the Republic of Srpska in 2017-2019 were collected to investigate
both long-term, short-term temporal variation and spatial distribution of the ratio.
The results show that the annual average PM2.5/PM10 ratio is 0.45 at urban-site and
0.70 at the urban-background site and 0.57 at the urban-industrial site with
apparent seasonal, monthly, and daily variations. Stable atmospheric conditions are
prerequisite for maximum ratio in the winter season. There are apparent night-day
differences of daily variation of the ratio and obvious spatial gradients of the ratio
from urban, urban-background, and urban-industrial sites. This study provides
further insights into the spatial and temporal variability of PM2.5/PM10 ratio that
should be noticed in its applications.
