Pollution In Chile

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Pages: 16

In spite of the growing deterioration of air and land resources in Chile, the concern for the wellbeing of the environment and human health is relatively recent. The capital of Chile, Santiago, used to be the envy of European cities as it was a relatively new city that had yet to go through all of the industrial growth that had brought pollution to cities such as Paris and London. For a while Chileans became unwary of pollution since their city was once an example of cleanliness, this is why part of the current pollution problem is rooted deep within the culture where it was seeded by the industrial growth of the country. As the population grew over the years so did Santiago, and with this growth also came the first signs a pollution problem. …show more content…
The other is due to the different processes of human activity, also known as anthropogenic sources, which includes a whole menagerie of different types of pollution ranging from solids such as particle pollution and heavy metals to gases such as carbon dioxide and ozone. Depending on geographical position, pollution can be referred to as point and non-point sources, where point sources are those that can be pinpointed at a single geographical position, such as a garbage dump. Non-point sources are those which may cover multiple and large areas, which makes them the most difficult to deal …show more content…
In Santiago levels of ozone have been recorded at levels of 150 parts per billion by volume during the summer, and even 320 ppbv in areas of the city with prevalent downwind, which is far above the U.S. and Chilean health thresholds of 0.08 ppmv 8 hour concentration and 0.075 ppmv hourly(Gramsch et al., 2006). These high levels of ozone may be attributed to a high density population of 6 million habitants, and the very complex topography in which Santiago is situated. As explained in reactions (d) and (e), the production of ozone is related to car emissions; a dense and numerous population implies high vehicle use within a city. This coincides with the high levels of ozone soon after high morning traffic and high light index at noon (Fig. 1) since 〖NO〗_2 and light are required to produce ozone, there for, the higher amounts of each should yield high amounts of ozone. As seen in Figure 1, amounts of ozone within the Santiago basin are considerably higher than in areas outside, this is attributed to the surrounding mountain range that prevents proper ventilation of the