Source assessment: agricultural open burning, state of the art. Final report

Technical Report · Fri Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 1977

OSTI ID:5308519

Chi, C T; Zanders, D L

The report summarizes reported data on air emissions from agricultural open burning, used in the U.S. for field sanitation, residue removal, and residue disposal. Using estimated emission factors derived from limited literature data, emissions were found to constitute 0.61%, 0.50%, 0.65%, and 0.06% of the national emissions of particulates, HC, CO, and NOx, respectively. Fifteen states have emissions of at least one criteria pollutant from this source which exceed 1% of the state total emissions of that pollutant. Source severity was found to be 1 for HC, 0.2 for POM, and less than 0.1 for other pollutants. (Source severity is defined as the ratio of the time-averaged maximum ground level concentration of a pollutant emitted from a representative source to the primary ambient air quality standard for criteria pollutants or to a corrected TLV for noncriteria pollutants.) Control technology in agricultural open burning consists of practicing fire and fuel management to reduce pollutant emissions. Among alternatives to controlling emissions from open burning are the combination of mobile field sanitation and straw utilization, and incorporation of wastes into the soil. Despite the continuing growth in crop harvest, agricultural open burning has been declining primarily due to increasing concern about air pollution from open burning and the refinement of associated agricultural practices.

• Research Organization: Monsanto Research Corp., Dayton, Ohio (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5308519
• Report Number(s): PB-270240; MRC-DA-683
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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