TY - JOUR
T1 - Towards European automatic bioaerosol monitoring
T2 - comparison of 9 automatic pollen observational instruments with classic Hirst-type traps
AU - Maya-Manzano, José M.
AU - Tummon, Fiona
AU - Abt, Reto
AU - Allan, Nathan
AU - Bunderson, Landon
AU - Clot, Bernard
AU - Crouzy, Benoît
AU - Daunys, Gintautas
AU - Erb, Sophie
AU - Gonzalez-Alonso, Mónica
AU - Graf, Elias
AU - Grewling, Łukasz
AU - Haus, Jörg
AU - Kadantsev, Evgeny
AU - Kawashima, Shigeto
AU - Martinez-Bracero, Moises
AU - Matavulj, Predrag
AU - Mills, Sophie
AU - Niederberger, Erny
AU - Lieberherr, Gian
AU - Lucas, Richard W.
AU - O'Connor, David J.
AU - Oteros, Jose
AU - Palamarchuk, Julia
AU - Pope, Francis D.
AU - Rojo, Jesus
AU - Šaulienė, Ingrida
AU - Schäfer, Stefan
AU - Schmidt-Weber, Carsten B.
AU - Schnitzler, Martin
AU - Šikoparija, Branko
AU - Skjøth, Carsten A.
AU - Sofiev, Mikhail
AU - Stemmler, Tom
AU - Triviño, Marina
AU - Zeder, Yanick
AU - Buters, Jeroen
PY - 2023/3/25
Y1 - 2023/3/25
N2 - To benefit allergy patients and the medical practitioners, pollen information should be available in both a reliable and timely manner; the latter is only recently possible due to automatic monitoring. To evaluate the performance of all currently available automatic instruments, an international intercomparison campaign was jointly organised by the EUMETNET AutoPollen Programme and the ADOPT COST Action in Munich, Germany (March-July 2021). The automatic systems (hardware plus identification algorithms) were compared with manual Hirst-type traps. Measurements were aggregated into 3-hourly or daily values to allow comparison across all devices. We report results for total pollen as well as for Betula, Fraxinus, Poaceae, and Quercus, for all instruments that provided these data. The results for daily averages compared better with Hirst observations than the 3-hourly values. For total pollen, there was a considerable spread among systems, with some reaching R 2 > 0.6 (3 h) and R 2 > 0.75 (daily) compared with Hirst-type traps, whilst other systems were not suitable to sample total pollen efficiently (R 2 < 0.3). For individual pollen types, results similar to the Hirst were frequently shown by a small group of systems. For Betula, almost all systems performed well (R 2 > 0.75 for 9 systems for 3-hourly data). Results for Fraxinus and Quercus were not as good for most systems, while for Poaceae (with some exceptions), the performance was weakest. For all pollen types and for most measurement systems, false positive classifications were observed outside of the main pollen season. Different algorithms applied to the same device also showed different results, highlighting the importance of this aspect of the measurement system. Overall, given the 30 % error on daily concentrations that is currently accepted for Hirst-type traps, several automatic systems are currently capable of being used operationally to provide real-time observations at high temporal resolutions. They provide distinct advantages compared to the manual Hirst-type measurements.
AB - To benefit allergy patients and the medical practitioners, pollen information should be available in both a reliable and timely manner; the latter is only recently possible due to automatic monitoring. To evaluate the performance of all currently available automatic instruments, an international intercomparison campaign was jointly organised by the EUMETNET AutoPollen Programme and the ADOPT COST Action in Munich, Germany (March-July 2021). The automatic systems (hardware plus identification algorithms) were compared with manual Hirst-type traps. Measurements were aggregated into 3-hourly or daily values to allow comparison across all devices. We report results for total pollen as well as for Betula, Fraxinus, Poaceae, and Quercus, for all instruments that provided these data. The results for daily averages compared better with Hirst observations than the 3-hourly values. For total pollen, there was a considerable spread among systems, with some reaching R 2 > 0.6 (3 h) and R 2 > 0.75 (daily) compared with Hirst-type traps, whilst other systems were not suitable to sample total pollen efficiently (R 2 < 0.3). For individual pollen types, results similar to the Hirst were frequently shown by a small group of systems. For Betula, almost all systems performed well (R 2 > 0.75 for 9 systems for 3-hourly data). Results for Fraxinus and Quercus were not as good for most systems, while for Poaceae (with some exceptions), the performance was weakest. For all pollen types and for most measurement systems, false positive classifications were observed outside of the main pollen season. Different algorithms applied to the same device also showed different results, highlighting the importance of this aspect of the measurement system. Overall, given the 30 % error on daily concentrations that is currently accepted for Hirst-type traps, several automatic systems are currently capable of being used operationally to provide real-time observations at high temporal resolutions. They provide distinct advantages compared to the manual Hirst-type measurements.
KW - Aerobiology
KW - Automatic monitoring
KW - Pollen classification
KW - Intercomparison campaign
KW - Pollen
KW - Real-time
U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.161220
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.161220
M3 - Article
C2 - 36584954
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 866
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
M1 - 161220
ER -