Atmospheric Particulate Matter around Phosphate Mining Basin

This book is an important scientific document that present chemical and mineralogical characterization of whole particulate matter (PM) in the vicinity of a mining basin. Gafsa is the study region we have combined several techniques to deliver a mapping of the dust pollution in this region. Passive monitoring or sampling is used to determine the pollutant distribution over a large area and to assess integrated concentration levels over long periods of time. In this study we have also shown that Particulate matter (PM) is a chemically non-specific pollutant. It may originate from different emission source types. In order to identify the sources of the particles we resorted to Principal component analysis and cluster analysis coupled with a correlation coefficient analysis. The results from multivariate statistic approaches have enabled us to characterize and apportion particulate matter emitted by 3 sources crustal dust industrial and traffic.