الاتجاهات الجديدة: جسيمات الغبار المتناهية الصغر المحمولة جوا والناتجة من أنشطة البناء- حاجة المصدر للتقدير الكمي

Urban infrastructure, such as bridges, roads and buildings, is constructed from a complex mixture of construction materials including concrete, metals, ceramics and plastics. The creation and operation of this infrastructure requires building activities (referring here to construction, refurbishment, demolition and recycling) over the life cycle of individual assets. Such buildingrelated activities are recognised as important but poorly quantified sources of coarse particles (i.e.
10 mm, PM10). However, far less attention has been paid to associated emissions of fine (i.e.
2.5 mm, PM2.5) and ultrafine particles (UFP; <100 nm in diameter). In fact, it remains largely unknown whether these activities also cause the unintended release of UFPs. As a consequence the focus of this article is limited to the UFP fraction arising from building activities, both due to length constraints and the lack of published information compared with larger size fractions. This should not distract from the fact that investigation of the release and exposure to both the coarse and fine fractions of particles from building activities are important and worthy of investigation. In seeking to address this under-explored topic preliminary evidence of UFP dust release during the processing of concrete materials is presented and the importance of such emissions and associated exposure discussed. The need for risk assessment and management strategies is also examined and some of the research gaps highlighted. The term ‘UFP dust’ is used throughout this article to refer to the UFP produced from the building activities to make them distinct from those arising from combustion or other engineering processes (Kumar et al., 2010).