Statistical characterisation of bio-aerosol background in an urban environment

TL;DR

This study statistically characterizes bio-aerosol background levels in an urban environment, develops a physics-based model for their dispersion, and proposes a framework for bio-aerosol detection algorithms.

Contribution

It introduces a gamma distribution-based model for bio-aerosol background in urban air, validated against measurements, aiding in bio-aerosol detection and characterization.

Findings

Bio-aerosol background contributes 3-9% of atmospheric microbiological material.

The gamma distribution model complies with observed concentration scaling laws.

Model validation shows good agreement with measured data.

Abstract

In this paper we statistically characterise the bio-aerosol background in an urban environment. To do this we measure concentration levels of naturally occurring microbiological material in the atmosphere over a two month period. Naturally occurring bioaerosols can be considered as noise, as they mask the presence of signals coming from biological material of interest (such as an intentionally released biological agent). Analysis of this 'biobackground' was undertaken in the 1-10 um size range and a 3-9% contribution was found to be biological in origin - values which are in good agreement with other studies reported in the literature. A model based on the physics of turbulent mixing and dispersion was developed and validated against this analysis. The Gamma distribution (the basis of our model) is shown to comply with the scaling laws of the concentration moments of our data, which enables us to universally characterise both biological and non-biological material in the atmosphere. An application of this model is proposed to build a framework for the development of novel algorithms for bio-aerosol detection and rapid characterisation.