3.1. Hourly Observations
Figure 2 shows the observed hourly relative humidity, temperature, PM10 concentration, and noon time wind speed and direction observed by four riverbed monitoring stations, as well as rainfall at general EPA stations near each river (Figure 2a–d). Observations from the Sanyi background station in central Taiwan are also plotted for comparison (Figure 2e). Two annual datasets, starting from September 2010 and September 2012, for all stations are plotted. In these figures, we can roughly divide the data into two periods, namely the winter monsoon and the summer monsoon. From October to April is usually the period of the winter monsoon. It can be seen in Figure 2 that the northeasterly or northerly winds prevailed at most riverbed stations during this period, and the temperature, humidity, and rainfall were relatively low, indicating the dry and windy seasons of the year. This is the period when more dust particles are generated from the riverbeds. On the other hand, during the summer monsoon period, the wind is usually weaker and wind direction is more diversified, and the relative humidity and rainfall are higher, resulting in fewer riverbed events. Among all the rivers, the Beinan is located in the southernmost position and is also on the edge of the prevailing northeasterly wind in winter (Figure 1). Therefore, even in the northeasterly seasons, the local land sea breezes often dominate. The wind direction at noon time (12:00) in Figure 2d shows that the sea breezes from the south are often observed in the riverbed area during the winter monsoon, and the wind direction is different from the northerlies or northeasterlies prevailing at the stations in Central Taiwan. These details can be seen later in the case study.
Figure 2. Wind speed and direction, relative humidity (orange line), temperature (pink line), and PM10 concentration observed at the (a) Daan and Dajia, (b) Dadu, (c) Zhuoshui, and (d) Beinan riverbed monitoring stations, and rainfall amounts observed at the closest general EPA stations adjacent to the rivers from 1 September 2010 to 31 August 2011, and 1 September 2012 to 31 August 2013. Observations from (e) Sanyi background station are plotted for comparison. Two selected events for discussion are marked with yellow bars.
Comparing the monitoring results of the four rivers, the riverbed event in the Zhuoshui River in Central Taiwan was more serious than events in other rivers (Figure 2). The PM10 concentration in the Zhuoshui River exceeded 400 µg m−3 in 16 h per year, of which it exceeded 800 µg m−3 in 2.5 h. In Daan/Dajia, the PM10 concentration exceeded 400 µg m−3 in 5 h per year, of which one hour exceeded 800 µg m−3. For the Beinan River in southeastern Taiwan, PM10 was observed to exceed 400 µg m−3 in 5 h per year. Similar to the Daan/Dajia and Zhuoshui Rivers, the Dadu River is also located in Central Taiwan, but the maximum hourly concentrations of PM10 exceeds 400 µg m−3 only once per year. In addition, aerosol transported from the Asian continent or local pollution to the riverbeds is limited. At the Sanyi background station in Central Taiwan (Figure 2e), the highest hourly PM10 concentrations in the two years were about 250 µg m−3, representing the hourly maximum PM10 value due to long-range transport to the island from abroad. Moreover, the hourly PM10 of the largest city in Central Taiwan (Taichung) is also less than 250 µg m−3 in the two years. Thus, the PM10 concentration due to dust generation from these major rivers is extremely high.
3.2. Average of Hourly Observations
Figure 3 summarizes the PM
10 and meteorological values from
Figure 2.
Figure 3a presents the annual and monthly averaged PM
10 concentrations of the major rivers. The results show that although the hourly PM
10 concentration in the riverbed is as high as 800 µg m
−3, the annual average PM
10 concentration in all major rivers is not high. The value range is only 21–57 µg m
−3, indicating that the rivers are located in rural areas. The largest annual averaged PM
10 is the Zhuoshui River in Central Taiwan, with a value of 57 µg m
−3, and the lowest is the Beinan River in southeastern Taiwan, with a value of 21 µg m
−3. In addition, the maximum monthly average of PM
10 was observed in the Zhuoshui River, with a concentration of 89 µg m
−3, which appeared in December. This maximum monthly average of the Zhuoshui River is more than three times the minimum value observed in July (25 µg m
−3). Similarly, the monthly average PM
10 concentrations during the winter monsoon period (October to April) are all higher than those in the summer monsoon periods (May to September) for other stations, but the ratio of maximum to minimum monthly averages are all around 3. Although the higher PM
10 in the riverbeds during the winter monsoon may come from the long-range transport of Asian dust and pollutants, previous studies reported that the monthly or annual average increase in Northern Taiwan is up to about 20 µg m
−3 [23][26], indicating the impacts of riverbed dust on PM
10 concentration.
Figure 3. Summary from Figure 2, (a) monthly average PM10 concentration, (b) daily counts of PM10 greater than 125 µg m−3 in each month, (c) annual average PM10 concentration in each hour, (d) hourly counts of PM10 greater than 125 µg m−3 in each month, (e) hourly counts of PM10 greater than 125 µg m−3 in each hour, and (f) hourly counts of wind directions per year for hourly PM10 greater than 125 µg m−3.
Figure 3b counts the total number of days in which the daily averaged PM10 of all riverbeds exceeded the air quality standard of 125 µg m−3 in each month. The results showed that the daily average PM10 exceedance time of all rivers was within 3 days per month, of which the maximum 3 days was observed in the Dadu River in April. In addition, for the entire year, the maximum number of 10 days was observed in the Zhuoshui River. This is because in the Zhuoshui River, the daily PM10 exceeds the standard for nearly half a day to 2.5 days per month in the winter. On the other hand, the Daan/Dajia Rivers exceed the standard value for half a day in September and October, while the Beinan River only exceeds the standard for half a day in October. The low daily average PM10 exceedance time of all rivers in Figure 3b indicates that the high riverbed concentrations occur sporadically within a few hours, and the background concentration of the rivers is relatively low during the rest of the day, and thus the daily average PM10 is not high.
Figure 3c shows the average concentration of PM10 for 24 h. Similar to the monthly average PM10 in Figure 3a, the hourly average PM10 of the riverbed is not high, with the highest values being 65 µg m−3, and appears after noon time (14:00) in the Zhuoshui River. The Daan/Dajia, and Beinan Rivers also have similar high concentrations during the day and low concentrations at night, while the hourly variation of the Dadu River is different from that of other rivers. The high concentration appeared in the morning, and the maximum value was as high as 60 µg m−3 at 7 a.m. In addition to the morning hours, the other hourly average values of the Dadu River are almost all slightly lower than in the Zhuoshui River, which is the river with the second highest concentration.
In order to inspect the occasional high concentrations of PM10 in the riverbed, this study counts the hours of high PM10 concentration. Since the EPA does not have an hourly air quality standard for PM10, we have used the 125 µg m−3 from the PM10 daily air quality standard as the criteria for selecting hourly high-concentration cases. Figure 3d shows the total number of hours exceeding 125 µg m−3 per month for all the rivers in an annual average. The results further highlight that the high concentration of PM10 varies by month and river. During the winter monsoon from October to April of the following year, the maximum number of exceedance hours per month is more than 80 h, while during the summer monsoon period, the value is almost zero in all rivers. Comparing different months, Figure 3d shows that the distribution of PM10 exceedance time is similar to the monthly average distribution in Figure 3a, showing a bimodal type, among which December, February, and April are the months with more exceedance hours for the Daan/Dajia, Dadu, and Zhuoshui Rivers in Central Taiwan. The high number of hours exceeding the criteria in these several months also resulted in high averaged concentrations in these rivers (Figure 3a). In Figure 3d, January is the month when the PM10 exceedance time is the lowest in the winter monsoon, which also results in the lowest monthly average concentration in the season. In addition to these few months, the number of hourly PM10 values exceeding the criteria in the Zhuoshui River was also high in October, and in the Beinan River in southeastern Taiwan was also high in September and October.
When comparing different rivers,
Figure 3d shows that the maximum time exceeding the criteria per month was 86 h, which occurred in the Zhuoshui River in December, and the total exceedance is 465 h for the same river in a year. Converting 465 or 86 h into days, there are almost 19 days a year, or 4 days a month, of exceedance time. Interestingly, the number of days when daily PM
10 exceeded the standard in the Zhuoshui River was only 10 days per year, and in December it was only 1.5 days (
Figure 3b). These results indicate again that high concentrations of PM
10 are mostly sporadic for a few hours of the day, rather than continuously occurring, so that the daily average value exceeding the standard is rare, which is different from the high concentration of the Asian dust event observed for several consecutive days
[36]. However, if the 465 or 86 h of over-criteria time are evenly distributed to 365 in a year, or 30 days in a month, the riverbed has from 1 h to nearly 3 h a day when PM
10 concentration has reached a value of 125 µg m
−3. For the Daan/Dajia, and Dadu Rivers, the total number of hours exceeding 125 µg m
−3 per month corresponds to about 2 h and 1 h per day in the severe months, respectively. Therefore, although the daily PM
10 exceedance time is low, high dust concentrations are often observed over these rivers, especially in severe months.
Figure 3e counts the total number of hours when PM10 exceeds 125 µg m−3 in each 24 h. It can be seen from the figure that the PM10 exceedance hour is unevenly distributed within 24 h. Most riverbeds show high exceedance hours during the daytime. Among all the rivers, the maximum exceedance occurs in the Zhuoshui River, and the over-criteria time from 8:00 to 16:00 during the day is about 25 to 35 h per year, indicating that the riverbed emissions may be higher during these periods. The Daan/Dajia, and Beinan Rivers have similar high PM10 concentrations at noon time, but the frequency is less. Different from other rivers, the Dadu River’s maximum exceedance occurred in the morning, and the value (20 h) is only slightly lower than that of the Zhuoshui River at the same time, similar to the result in Figure 3c. In addition to the daytime exceedance, Figure 3e shows that most rivers in Central Taiwan have also observed high PM10 events at night, implying that the PM10 in these rivers may have other sources.
In addition to monthly and hourly variations in high riverbed concentrations, the wind directions in all rivers that cause hourly PM10 to exceed 125 µg m−3 are also summarized. In order to simplify the wind problem, all wind directions are only divided into four directions, 0 to 90 degrees as northeasterlies (NE), 90 to 180 degrees as southeasterlies (SE), 180 to 270 degrees as southwesterlies (SW), and 270 to 360 degrees as northwesterlies (NW). Figure 3f shows the total number of hours per year for different wind directions leading to high riverbed concentrations. In Figure 3f, the Zhuoshui River has the longest time exceeding the standard per year (465 h), and the Beinan River has the shortest time exceeding the standard per year (35 h). Regardless of the wide range of exceedance time, Figure 3f shows that the main wind directions are northeasterly and northwesterly winds, which account for at least 70% of all riverbed high-concentration events, observed mainly in the northeasterly monsoon seasons. In addition, southwesterly and southeasterly winds are also important, accounting for at least about 15% of the high-concentration events for all the rivers.
Furthermore, we also checked other meteorological conditions that caused the hourly PM10 value to exceed 125 µg m−3, including wind speed, temperature, and humidity. The results showed that all rivers have a wide range of wind speed during high concentrations of hourly PM10. The maximum wind speed was as high as 11 m s−1, but the minimum wind speed was only 0.2 m s−1. The temperature range was likely to be from 11 to 34 °C, and the humidity range was from 33% to 94% at the high hourly concentration of PM10. The wide ranges of the meteorological conditions at high PM10 concentration may be caused by the meteorological conditions of various weather types and will be explored in the following sections.