Airborne ultrafine particles in Australian cities

Our Project

This project aims to establish comprehensive scientific understanding of the characteristics of Australian urban ambient ultrafine particles (UFP), their main sources, their potential health effects and provide recommendations for legislative approaches to this emerging airborne pollutant.

To achieve the aims of the project, we assembled a unique team of cross-disciplinary, leading international scientists from Australia, Germany, Italy, Korea and Spain, as well as partners representing State authorities responsible for air quality in Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, and Western Australia, as well as from New Zealand. The Queensland Department of Environment and Science will also be involved through the existing long-term support towards UFP research in Brisbane.

The project is led by the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health (ILAQH) at QUT and is supported by the Australian Research Council Linkage Project Grants (LP180100516).

Our Team

Project Leader:

• Lidia Morawska, QUT

Chief Investigators:

• Zoran Ristovski, QUT
• Godwin Ayoko, QUT
• Branka Miljevic, QUT
• Graham Johnson, QUT
• Helen Thomson, QUT
• Matthew Dunbabin, QUT
• Felipe Gonzalez, QUT
• Guy Marks, UNSW
• Benjamin Mullins, Curtin University
• Melita Keywood, CSIRO
• Matthew Riley, NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH)
• Lisa Chang, NSW OEH
• Pushan Shaw, South Australia Environmental Protection Agency
• Peter Taylor, Department of Water and Environmental Regulation
• Kylie Reynolds, Mid West Port Authority
• Hamesh Patel, MOTE New Zealand
• Mandana Mazaheri, NSW Department of Planning and Environment
• Xavier Querol, Spanish National Research Council
• Josef Cyrys, Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen – German Research Center for Environmental Health
• Kang-Ho Ahn, Hanyang University, Republic of Korea
• Giorgio Buonanno, Parthenope University of Naples, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio

Publications

• Liu, P., Shao, L., Zhang, Y., Silvonen, V., Oswin, H, Cao, Y., Guo, Z., Ma, X. and Morawska, L. Atmospheric microplastic deposition in association with GDP growth: insights from megacities in North China. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 469: 134024, 2024
• Pradhan, B., Singh, K., Jayaratne, E.R., Thompson, H., Jagals, P., Gucake, J., Hilly, J.J., Turagabeci, A. and Morawska, L. Assessing school children’s personal exposure to PM_2.5 in Suva, Fiji. Atmospheric Environment, 325: 120448, 2024
• Ma, X., Zou, B., Deng, J., Gao, J., Longley, I., Xiao, S., Guo, B., Wu, Y., Xu, T., Xu, X., Yang, X., Wang, X., Tan, Z., Wang, Y., Morawska, L. and Salmond, J. A Comprehensive Review of the Development of Land Use Regression Approaches for Modeling Spatiotemporal Variations of Ambient Air Pollution: A Perspective from 2011-2023. Environment International, 183: 108430, 2024
• Pradhan, B., Jayaratne, E.R., Thomson, H., Buonanno, G., Mazaheri, M., Nyarku, M., Wei, W., Pereira, M.L., Cyrys, J., Peters, A. and Morawska, L. Utility of outdoor central site monitoring in assessing exposure of school children to ultrafine particles. Science of the Total Environment, 859(1): 160162, 2023