Air monitoring for Riga city development: modelling of traffic caused air pollution

Riga, the capital of Latvia is a city with nearly 900000 inhabitants, and has highly concentrated various industries and intensive traffic. Air pollution in Riga is a serious problem as health is affected in a negative way and valuable buildings of historical importance are being damaged. Traffic caused air pollution in the streets of Riga are monitored by Riga City Council Air Monitoring Division using Air Quality Management System INDIC AIRVIRO and OPSIS differential absorption instrument. Results obtained during four years show that air pollution in Riga is becoming a serious problem - increased number of complaints from inhabitants about heavily polluted air can be easily explained with formation of photochemical smog. Moreover, the number of registered cars in Riga during last three years has increased by seven times, but the air pollution level on main streets around the central part of Riga city increased almost twofold(1).