NC1022: The Chemical and Physical Nature of Particulate Matter Affecting Air, Water and Soil Quality. (NCR174)
Statement of Issues and Justification
The need as indicated by stakeholders.The newly released National Research Council report entitled "Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations: Current Knowledge, Future Needs" (Ad Hoc Committee on Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations 2003) addresses a growing public concern about the air quality impact of animal feeding operations. This report comes as the United States Environmental Protection Agency evaluates air quality regulations for agricultural operations. Chief among the recommendations in the NRC report is a systems-based approach that places air emissions from animal feeding operations within the larger agricultural production context.
Agricultural practices affect not only air quality, but also soil and water quality for both rural and urban communities. The impacts flows both ways. Activities in urban settings affect soil and water quality for rural and agricultural use, while public concern and regulatory authority to protect the environment impel efforts to preserve and improve environmental quality. Efficient management and effective regulation will optimize environmental and health protection without crippling the economy, rural or urban.
The importance of the work and the consequences if it is not done.
This much is certain; the demand for reliable information to guide management and regulation of rural air quality outstrips our current scientific understanding. A key agricultural air emission component is particulate matter. Some agricultural sources are very similar to urban sources including diesel engine exhaust and agricultural burning. It is well known, for instance, that agricultural use of plastic film is increasing. Much of the waste plastic film is currently disposed by on-farm burning. The rural particulate matter source that differs from urban settings is resuspended solids arising from cultivation and animal feeding operations. In urban settings resuspended particulate matter is primarily road dust. Synchrotron-based analytical methods are unrivaled in their capacity for analyzing the elemental, chemical and mineralogical composition of micrometer- and nanometer-sized particulates. This will allow researchers to characterize particulate material from agricultural operations as required for effective management and air quality regulation.
By way of background, synchrotrons are large machines that produce extremely intense beams of "synchrotron light" that are useful for research in many fields of science. Synchrotron light is emitted at wavelengths from the infrared to the hard x-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the brightness synchrotron beams can be more than a billion times greater than typical laboratory sources. As a result, scientists can study smaller samples at higher spatial resolution and higher analytical sensitivity than is ever possible using normal laboratory-based instruments.The past decade has witnessed an accelerating pace in soil and water research that can be traced in no small measure to research conducted at synchrotron facilities. While synchrotron facilities offer a broad suite of experimental methods promoting these advances, the impact does not end with the instrumental capabilities. Synchrotron facilities are also institutions that foster scientific exchange within the community of soil and water researchers using the facility and between members of different scientific disciplines such as geoscience, biology, chemistry, and physics.
This project would expand the community using synchrotron facilities beyond the soil and water researchers who became involved in the past decade to include a broader cross section of scientists working to support US agriculture, notability atmospheric scientists.
The technical feasibility of the research.
A common thread that runs through much environmental research is the importance of processes that operate simultaneously on different spatial and temporal scales. For instance, major questions surround particulate matter affecting rural air quality. The technical feasibility of applying synchrotron-based methods to a wide range of sample sizes and chemical compositions is amply supported by the current scientific literature.
The advantages for doing the work as a multi-state effort.
There are several advantages in doing this project as a multi-state effort. Frist, particulate matter (PM) is transported across state and regional boundaries by both air and water making it a regional rather than local problem. Second, just as urban PM emissions vary considerably from one metropolitan area to another, we can expect rural PM emissions also vary because livestock industry, crops, farming practices, soils, and water chemistry vary regionally. Third, the central focus of this project (synchrotron spectro-microscopy) demands extensive cooperation among members: sharing experience with specific facilities and microscopy techniques and sharing disciplinary expertise (soil, water and air chemistry, microbiology, etc.). Fourth, this project has two implicit strategies for reaching its objectives. It would promote soil and water chemists with synchrotron experience to acquire synchrotron spectro-microscopy experience and it would establish collaborative relationships that do not already exist between scientists studying agricultural particulates and environmental scientists with synchrotron experience. The latter logically begins with sharing samples and data for synchrotron spectro-microscopy analysis but would yield optimal progress if the collaborations went deeper. Synchrotron rsearch by soil scientists primarily focused in the past on industrial contaminants, i.e., metals and metalloids. There are many opportunities now with micro-focused techniques to study agricultural contaminants such as metals, phosphate, etc. in biosolid amended soils and biosolid materials that will link more basic soil science with applied soil science particularly in the area of nutrient management. Finally, the members have already established an excellent record of multi-state collaboration. There is no reason this will diminish.
What the likely impacts will be from successfully completing the work.
Recent advances in synchrotron facilities clearly demonstrate the rich chemical and physical information that can be acquired from micrometer- and nanometer-sized particles. Thus, we can anticipate developing a detailed picture of the particulate matter from agricultural emissions.
Dramatic advances in soil and water chemistry over the past decade show no signs of lagging with the most notable developments coming as scientists begin to apply spectro-microscopic methods to chemically heterogeneous materials from soils and sediments. No doubt collaboration between chemists and microbiologists will grow as scientists characterize the microenvironment of microbes in situ.
Back to Top