Monitoring the quality of air in the port of Naples

Recently the assessment of the impact of atmospheric emissions of cruise ships in ports on the air quality of urban areas has received a large interest. This is due both to the entity of these emissions and to the proximity of ship mooring points to the center of the towns. In fact, cruise ships need a large amount of electric energy to feed hull and hotel services when they stay at berth. This energy is produced by auxiliary engines. In order to study the air quality in the port of Naples (Italy) and the correlation between air quality and ship cruise emissions, two monitoring campaigns were carried out during 2012. Concentration of the main pollutants was monitored continuously for 15 days in April and 15 days in November. Simultaneously, the presence of ships in port was registered in order to evaluate the emission rate of atmospheric pollutants coming from the exhausts of the ship engines. Spatial distribution of pollutants was measured by passive samplers. Area selected represents sites close to the busiest berths. In this paper the main results of the first campaign will be presented together with an analysis of the spatial distribution of pollutants, and of the correlation between their concentrations in air with ship activities in port.