PM emissions from open field crop management: emission factors, assessment methods and mitigation measures – A review

Globally, particulate matter (PM) emissions are a growing cause of concern due to the potential impact on human health and environment. The agricultural sector is responsible of the 17% of the total anthropogenic emission of PM10 and the agricultural operations (tilling, harvesting, residue burning etc.) have been recognized as one of the main drivers of this contribution. This topic has been addressed in many articles, focusing on the impacts coming from different steps of the agricultural production system and using different assessment methods. The aim of this review is to identify the main agricultural operations producing particulate emission, providing a collection of the Emission Factors (EF) available in literature. The most used EFs determination methods have also been described, by focusing on pros and cons of each method. Issues and lacks of information to be addressed by future research have been highlighted. It has been observed that very few PM emission assessment have been done by taking into consideration whole cropping systems and the information available is fragmented onto single cropping activities. In addition, very few mitigation measures have been developed so far.