Atmospheric Environment 33 (1999) 3133}3142

Temporal variations of source impacts at the receptor,

as derived from air particulate monitoring data
in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
P.D. Hien* , N.T. Binh
, Y. Truong
, N.T. Ngo

National Atomic Energy Agency, 59 Ly thuong Kiet, Hanoi, Vietnam

Dalat Nuclear Research Institute, Dalat, Lam dong, Vietnam
Received 18 November 1997; accepted 18 August 1998

Abstract
Varimax rotation factor analysis was applied to monthly concentrations of elements in total suspended air particulate
(TSP) matter in Ho Chi Minh City collected from December 1992 to November 1996, covering four dry/rainy seasons.
Six pollution source types were revealed. Resuspended soil/road dust accounts for 74% of the TSP mass loading. Motor
vehicles and a source which emits particulates containing arsenic account for 10% and 9%, respectively. There are three
minor sources, namely, cement dust from the nearby construction site, road dust of local tra$c origin and burning
emissions. The contributions from these source were estimated with high uncertainties. The interpretation of sources was
corroborated by studying source pro"les and temporal variations of source contributions. The monthly variations of
source contributions at the receptor were modelled by using source apportionment techniques. From the variation
patterns, emission scenarios for burning, construction and motor vehicle sources were reproduced. Source contributions
also exhibit seasonal variability induced by changes of meteorological conditions. No seasonal change was found for the
As-containing particulates, suggesting a speculation on their origin as coal #y ash emitting from any local coal burning
source.  1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Total suspended air particulates; Ho Chi Minh City; Monthly concentration data; Source apportionment;
Annual and seasonal variations

1. Introduction
Multivariate receptor modelling techniques based on
the variability of ambient elemental/chemical concentrations of suspended particulate matter have been successfully developed and applied over the last two decades for
the purpose of characterizing air pollution sources in
urban areas (Hopke et al., 1976; Thurston and Spengler,
1985; Keiding et al., 1986). Most works published so far

*Corresponding author.

have dealt with urban air pollution in industrialized

countries. Meanwhile, the particulate levels in many cities of developing countries exceed the WHO's health
protection guideline and urban air pollution has been
among severe environmental problems of the developing
world (WHO, 1987; Mage et al., 1996).
With some 5 million inhabitants, i.e. about 7% of
Vietnam's population, Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) accounts for more than one-third of the country's industrial
output with an annual GDP growth rate at around 15%
in the last few years. Although large industrial pollution
sources do not exist, the air quality has been a!ected by

1352-2310/99/$ - see front matter  1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 1 3 5 2 - 2 3 1 0 ( 9 8 ) 0 0 3 3 7 - 9

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P.D. Hien et al. / Atmospheric Environment 33 (1999) 3133}3142

the fast growing fuel consumption, vehicular tra$c,

booming construction works, etc.
In the framework of a co-ordinated air pollution
monitoring programme, concentrations of chemical elements and radionuclides in TSP were measured in
monthly samples collected during the period from December 1992 to November 1996 covering four dry/rainy
seasons. Since July 1996, two sampling units have been
set up for daily monitoring of air particulates with diameters less than 10 lm (PM-10) and 2.5 lm (PM-2.5).
For characterizing air particulate sources, major "ndings
are expected to be derived from PM-10 and PM-2.5 data.
However, statistical analyses of TSP's monthly data have
yielded substantial understandings on air particulate
sources. In particular, from the modelling of monthly
variations of source contributions to the TSP mass at the
receptor, it was possible to reveal variabilities induced by
changes in the source strengths as well as seasonal e!ects
of atmospheric conditions. The capability of receptor
modelling techniques in characterizing emission sources
based on TSP data has recently been demonstrated by
Harrison et al. (1997) for other Asian city, i.e. Lahore,
Pakistan. A clear cut distinction in the source structure
was obtained even for an urban area where soil dust is
highly abundant (607 lg m\) and predominant (62%) in
TSP mass.

2. Experimental
2.1. Sampling
The sampling site is located on the roof of an eightstorey building in a residential area near downtown
HCMC. The siting was intended to collect representative
data for the area with minimum in#uences of road dust
that is abundant in the ground-level air. The industrial
zone of the city is some 10 km north and northeast of the
sampling site. However, there are numerous small factories and handicraft units scattered throughout residential
areas in the city, especially, in the nearby Cho lon China
town.
A Russian-made high volume air sampler with a #ow
rate of &700 m h\ was used for collecting total suspended air particulates on chlorinated vinyl polychloride
Petranow "lter FPP-15. The use of such a high #ow rate
air sampler was necessary for a combined monitoring of
airborne chemical elements and radionuclides as required by the environmental protection authority. We
also have found some advantages of such a combined
monitoring (Binh et al., 1996). Due to logistic constraints,
sampling was only done in day time, from 8 a.m. to
4 p.m., on week days (including Saturday). Elemental
compositions of TSP and airborne radionuclides were
measured every month. This work included 48 monthly

samples collected from December 1992 to November

1996.
2.2. Meteorological conditions
Meteorological conditions of HCMC is typical of
Southeast Asia monsoon regime with two distinct seasons. From May to November, SW wind and cyclonic
conditions bring about 90% of the total annual rainfall.
The dry season begins in late November when HCMC
comes under the in#uence of the Asiatic high-pressure
centre (AHPC) with N or NE winds prevalent. Anticyclonic conditions are usually observed from late December to early February, when the AHPC is in its most
active phase, pushing large-scale cold air masses down
far to the Southeast Asia equatorial zone. From February to May, SE wind prevails.
2.3. Analysis
Dust loaded "lters were cut into sections for elemental
and radionuclide analyses. Elemental compositions of
TSP were determined by instrumental neutron activation
analysis (INAA) at the 500 kW Dalat nuclear research
reactor and by polarography method (for lead) using
OMEGA METROHM 647 polarograph. Experimental
conditions for INAA are described elsewhere (see e.g.
Hien et al., 1992). Reactor irradiations were carried
out separately for short, medium and long lived nuclides
in 5 min., 20 min. and 10 h, respectively, by using a
pneumatic transfer system and by manual loading of
samples into the rotary specimen rack at the graphite
re#ector.
The INAA method provided concentrations for about
30 elements with accuracies around 5}10%. The analytical procedure for lead was described in our previous
paper (Hien et al., 1997). The accuracy for lead was about
5%.
2.4. Analytical results
Table 1 shows relevant statistics and physical characteristics of concentrations of 24 elements, which were
used for source characterization by factor analysis. By
converting concentration values from elements to chemical components, e.g. to oxides for metals, the overall
contribution of measured components in the average
TSP mass (77.7 lg m\) can be estimated as about 30%.
Silicon, the most abundant crustal element, was not appropriately measured by INAA. But the mass contribution of silicon oxide in TSP can be estimated as high as
25% assuming the Si-to-Al abundance ratio in TSP is
similar to that in the crust (Mason, 1966). The remaining
TSP mass should be made up mainly of sulphate, nitrate,
organics and black or elemental carbon which also were
not measured in the experiments.

P.D. Hien et al. / Atmospheric Environment 33 (1999) 3133}3142

3135

Table 1
Statistical and physical characteristics of ambient concentrations

Na
Mg
Al
Cl
K
Ca
Sc
Ti
V
Cr
Mn
Fe
Co
Cu
Zn
As
Br
Rb
Sb
Cs
Ba
Ce
La
Sm
Eu
Lu
Pb
Th
U
TSP

Mean (ng m\)

Standard
deviation
(ng m\)

Geometric mean
(ng m\)

Geometric
Standard
deviation

DWR

EF
(for the mean)

802
640
2760
1204
915
3360
0.58
266
7.6
9.4
37.8
3078
1.23
1.39
203
1.47
9.7
4.1
3.8
0.53
33
3.3
1.48
0.22
0.056
0.017
163
0.56
0.18
77700

317
242
1461
500
425
2838
0.21
106
4.5
3.3
11.6
1054
0.46
1.21
100
0.60
6.0
1.4
5.3
0.46
11
1.0
0.61
0.09
0.027
0.005
113
0.19
0.08
24200

743
567
2424
1108
838
2193
0.55
247
6.6
8.9
36.1
2919
1.15
1.12
181
1.51
8.4
3.9
2.3
0.41
31
3.2
1.36
0.20
0.051
0.016
139
0.47
0.17
74300

1.49
1.75
1.69
1.53
1.52
2.76
1.42
1.46
1.70
1.38
1.36
1.38
1.42
1.85
1.64
1.47
1.70
1.44
2.44
1.99
1.42
1.35
1.53
1.57
1.58
1.42
1.77
1.44
1.52
1.35

1.81
1.65
1.65
1.69
1.71
1.88
1.65
1.51
1.89
1.46
1.5
1.56
1.54
1.64
1.07
1.16
1.23
1.67
3.2
1.6
1.47
1.54
1.81
1.77
1.7
1.43
1.31
1.7
1.51
1.52

1.1
1.1
1.3
356
1.3
3.3
1
2.3
2.1
3.6
1.6
2.3
1.9
1
117
32
153
1.7
698
6.7
2.9
2.1
1.9
1.3
1.8
1.4
505
2.6
3.9

Air particulate species have a common seasonal

variability feature, i.e. the concentrations are higher in
the dry season. The dry-to-wet seasonal mean ratios
(DWR) were calculated in Table 1. Apart from such
a common trend, each species exhibits its own temporal
variability (Fig. 1). For example, the concentration
of Ca was a!ected by the nearby construction site
during the period from mid-1993 to mid-1995. The
burning of "recrackers, that was a source of airborne
lead, potassium, antimony, etc. (Hien et al., 1997), has
"nally been banned by the government since mid 1994.
The two eminent peaks of Sb in Fig. 1 were identi"ed as
associated with the "recracker burning during lunar New
Year festivities, that fell in January 1993 and February
1994.
Concentration data follow quite well lognormal frequency distributions. At 5% signi"cance level of the
goodness-of-"t chi-square test, the lognormal distribu-

tion is rejected only for Ca, Sb and Zn. For all species, the
geometric means of ambient concentrations are less than
the arithmetic means. The geometric standard deviations
(GSD) of TSP and most of crustal elements are approximately constant, varying from 1.35 to 1.6, almost the
same range as was found by Kao and Fridelander (1995)
for the aerosols in the South Coast Air Basin, USA.
Meanwhile, the GSD for Ca, Cu, and Sb are higher, from
1.8 to 2.8. Bimodal frequency distributions are found for
these species.
The enrichment factors (EF) are given in column 7 of
Table 1. The EF for a given element is de"ned as the
double ratio of the concentration of this element (X) to
that of Sc in TSP and in the earth crust according to
Mason (1966) as following:
(X/Sc)
21. .
EF"
(X/Sc)
+ 

3136

P.D. Hien et al. / Atmospheric Environment 33 (1999) 3133}3142

Fig. 1. Monthly variations of elemental concentrations Fe, Al, Ca (lg m\); Br, Sb, As (ng m\).

Anthropogenic elements, such as Br, Cl, Pb, Sb, etc.,

are clearly enriched in TSP, with EF'100.

3. Source characterization
3.1. Factor analysis
Varimax rotation factor analysis was applied to ambient concentration data to identify SPM sources a!ecting
the sampling site. Twenty four elements mentioned in
Table 1 were used as variables as shown in Tables 2}4.
These include all species having high enrichment factors,
i.e. those of anthropogenic origin. TSP mass was also
used as a variable to allow the determination of source
pro"les and source contributions at the receptor following the procedure proposed by Keiding et al. [4].
Six factors accounting for 86% of the total variance in
the data set and 94% of the common variance were
retained. The varimax rotated factor matrix is shown in
Table 2. The factor standard deviations were calculated

according to Heidam (1982). In Table 2, factor loadings

numerically less than twice the factor standard deviations
are left out for clarity. The computed elemental pro"les
for six source components at the receptor site, S1}S6, are
given in Table 3.
Factor F1 with high loadings of crustal elements can
be attributed to resuspended soil/road dust. TSP mass is
strongly coupled with this factor. The enrichment factors
computed from the source pro"le of S1 (Table 4) are
around 1}3 for both major (Al, Fe, Mn, Na, Ti) and
minor (Cr, Co, Th, REEs) crustal elements. Meanwhile,
Cl and As are found enriched in S1.
Source S5 is also dominated by crustal elements. Aluminum and titanium are more abundant in S5 than in
S1, while chlorine is enriched in both sources. On the
other hand, vanadium, a marker of residual oil, is
coupled with factor F5 resulting in a high enrichment of
V in S5 (EF"15). Copper, which can be emitted from
diesel engines, is also found enriched in S5. These suggest
that S5 can be assigned to road dust derived by local
tra$c activities. This interpretation will be further corroborated by studying the source contribution to the

P.D. Hien et al. / Atmospheric Environment 33 (1999) 3133}3142

3137

Table 2
Varimax rotation factor loadings (F), standard deviations of the loadings (SD) and communalities (h2). For clarity, factor loadings less
than two SDs are omitted

Al
As
Br
Ca
Ce
Cl
Co
Cr
Cu
Fe
K
La
Lu
Mn
Na
Pb
Sb
Sc
Sm
Th
Ti
U
V
Zn
TSP
Source

F1

F2

0.47
0.26

0.40
0.35
0.21

0.87

0.14
0.62

0.17
0.20

0.77
0.11
0.56
0.20

0.26

0.37
0.23
0.82
0.84
0.19
0.22

0.26
0.23
0.19

0.42
0.93
0.55
0.91
0.78
0.93
0.58
0.78
0.83
0.68
0.84
0.12
0.93
0.88
0.93
0.55
0.65
0.45
0.90
Soil-1

0.15
0.54
0.20
Burning

F3

0.20
0.24

F4

F5

F6

SD

h2

0.35
0.18

0.61

0.17
0.66

0.69

0.20

0.29
0.22
0.46

0.15
0.15

0.06
0.12
0.08
0.10
0.04
0.07
0.06
0.07
0.10
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.10
0.07
0.07
0.09
0.09
0.03
0.05
0.05
0.07
0.11
0.07
0.11
0.03

0.91
0.68
0.84
0.75
0.95
0.89
0.92
0.89
0.78
0.96
0.91
0.83
0.76
0.87
0.87
0.79
0.82
0.97
0.93
0.95
0.89
0.72
0.88
0.69
0.97

0.15

0.18
0.21
0.18

0.17
0.41
0.31
0.16

0.39
0.20

0.11
0.21

0.16
0.26

0.31
0.19
0.17
0.12
0.43
0.20
0.80
0.20
Auto

0.14
0.13
0.19
0.52

0.24
0.11
0.30
0.40

0.09
0.10
0.13
0.36

0.60
0.19
Construc.

TSP mass loading. In the following, S1 and S5 will be

named by soil-1 and soil-2, respectively.
Factor F2 with high loadings of Cl, Cu, K, Pb and Sb
likely represents a mixture of burning emissions, including "recracker burning, that caused high levels of Sb, Pb
and K in January 1993 and February 1994. Burning of
domestic "rewood and garbage may be other components of this source type.
The markers of motor vehicle emissions, Br and Zn are
shown up in factors F3. Bromine is derived from the
combustion of leaded gasoline, while Zn is known to be
found in tyre wear particles. The low loading of lead in
this factor (0.19) indicates the role of other sources of
airborne lead. However, the Pb/Br ratio calculated from
the source pro"le S3 (Table 3) is 3.7$2.3, that is in
reasonable agreement with literature values for autoexhaust (Harrison and Sturges, 1983).
Factor F4 has a high loading of calcium. As will be
seen later, source S4 can be attributed to fugitive cement
dust from the nearby construction site.
Factor F6 has a high loading of arsenic, a usual marker
of coal #y ash. The elemental pro"le of S6 was not
much di!erent from literature data for coal #y ash

0.15
Soil-2

0.14
As-related

(IAEA-TECDOC-854, 1995), except for the very high

abundance of Pb. Uranium is found moderately correlated with this factor. However, there is no coal-"red
power plant in the area, and coal shares only a small
portion of fuel consumption in the city, about ten
times as low as that of oil. Selenium, another marker
of coal, could not be included in factor analysis due to
quite a few missing values in the data set. As arguments
are not su$cient for attributing factor F6 to coal #y ash,
the term &As-related source' will be used for assigning this
source.
3.2. Source apportionment procedures
The modelling of source contributions and their
monthly variations will give further insights into the
nature of emission sources. The apportionment of TSP to
sources has been done by multiple linear regression of
ambient elemental concentrations upon source pro"les
(Keiding et al., 1986). The regression coe$cient f represGH
ent the contribution of emission source i to the TSP
mass loading for the sample j. In this procedure a
weight (diagonal) matrix was used in order to lessen the

3138

P.D. Hien et al. / Atmospheric Environment 33 (1999) 3133}3142

Table 3
Elemental pro"les of source types (mg g\). The relative errors in percent are given in brackets
Element

Soil-1

Burning

Al
As
Br
Ca
Ce
Cl
Co
Cr
Cu
Fe
K
La
Lu
Mn
Na
Pb
Sb
Sc
Sm
Th
Ti
U
V

32(13)
0.008(45)

123(15)
0.048(33)
0.26(40)

1.07(10)

0.03(31)
65(11)

0.035(26)
21(33)

0.2(12)
25(37)
50(11)
0.026(42)

0.064(37)

0.9(20)
15(32)
19.4(11)
1.1(10)
0.008(18)
0.004(25)

0.62(28)
15(32)
4(50)

55(24)
0.043(5)
12(12)
0.019(6)
0.12(9)
45(4)
11(10)
0.022(11)
0.0002(12)
0.36(11)
12.2(9)

0.0089(4)
0.0035(6)
0.0081(5)
2.6(12)
0.0024(17)
0.093(16)

3.4(44)
0.51(13)

Auto

17(31)
0.03(35)

Construction

Soil-2

As-related

111(17)

250(10)

70(36)
0.13(18)

428(15)

150(50)

32(23)
0.022(25)

20(46)
0.019(38)
0.07(46)
0.07(46)
52(23)

0.044(29)

0.33(15)
39(24)
38(15)
0.041(28)
0.4(45)

1.3(18)
17(37)

0.17(39)
32(40)
25(30)

0.5(45)
8.5(36)

0.42(28)
0.008(18)
0.0031(32)
0.0047(39)
9.2(16)
0.18(35)
16(14)

in#uence of elements that were poorly modelled, i.e. with

low communalities in factor analysis.
A satisfactory agreement was obtained between regressed and observed ambient concentrations. The mean
($standard deviation) of the adjusted-R's is 0.991
($0.008). However, 65 out of 288 regression coe$cients
were negative, of which 31, 19 and 15 cases occurred with
the construction (S4), soil-2 (S5) and burning (S2) sources,
respectively. Actually, only in nine cases, the negative
regression coe$cients are statistically signi"cant, i.e.
f O0 with a(0.05. Thus, the source contributions in
GH
cases of negative regression coe$cients can be regarded
as negligible, i.e., f "0. The modelled source contribuGH
tions are presented in Fig. 2a}g. &&Negative'' source contributions in cases of S4, S5 and S2 are set equal to zero
(Fig. 2b, d, e). Some summary statistics of source contributions are given in Table 5.
In order to check to what extent the negative source
contributions are speci"c of the statistical procedure used
for source apportionment, another procedure was tried,
namely, the absolute principal component score (APCS)
method proposed by Thurston and Spengler, (1985). In
this method, an extra (49th) &&hypothetical'' zero-concentration sample was included in the data set for factor
analysis, and the corresponding factor scores were then
used for computing the renormalised factor scores, i.e. the

0.005(23)
0.0044(44)
7(22)
0.007(27)

0.008(250)
0.003(41)
0.01(26)
15(13)

0.005(38)
0.005(48)
4(51)
0.008(30)

0.75(12)

APCS. The source contributions were computed by regressing the TSP mass loadings against the APCSs. The
results obtained from the two source apportionment procedures are almost similar, except for minor discrepancies in the numerical values, that appears to be due to the
alteration of the factor loading matrix by the inclusion of
an extra zero-concentration sample in the data set.
3.3. Results of source apportionment
Soil-1 is a predominant source, it accounts for 74% of
the TSP mass. The corresponding regression coe$cients
were obtained with relative standard errors of about 5%.
The remaining 26% of the TSP mass is distributed over
"ve sources. Their contributions were, therefore, estimated with much larger relative errors, i.e. about 20% for
S3 and S6 and even more larger for minor sources S2, S4
and S5.
The contribution of soil-2 to TSP is 27 times as low as
that of soil-1. Such a low impact of soil-2 is understandable, if suppose this source type contains mainly coarse
particles, derived into the air by local tra$c, and most of
them settle quickly, not reaching the sampling site at
25 m above ground. It is such a short residence time of
large dust particles making soil-2 separated from (uncorrelated with) soil-1, although these sources share a

P.D. Hien et al. / Atmospheric Environment 33 (1999) 3133}3142

Table 4
Enrichment factors for soil-1 and soil-2 (not calculated for
elements with factor loadings less than twice the factor standard
deviations)
Element

EF(soil-1)

Al
As
Br
Ca
Ce
Cl
Co
Cr
Cu
Fe
K
La
Lu
Mn
Na
Pb
Sb
Sc
Sm
Th
Ti
U
V
Zn

1
11
*
4
2
240
2
3
*
2
1
2
1
1
1
*
*
1
1
3
1
3
2
*

EF(soil-2)
4
*
*
*
1340
2
*
10
1
*
*
*
3
2
*
*
1
*
3
2
*
10
*

common origin, i.e. road dust. Apart from road dust,

soil-1 contains wind-blown soil dust from construction
sites, building roofs, etc.
In Table 6, the ambient elemental concentrations calculated from the source contributions are compared with
the observed values in terms of variances (correlation
coe$cients) and mean values. Despite large errors
involved in calculating the contributions from minor
sources, an overall satisfactory agreement has been obtained. The agreement is better for crustal elements than
for anthropogenic elements (As, Cu, Pb, Sb and Zn),
which generally have lower communalities and larger
factor standard deviations.
Table 7 shows some results of apportionment of ambient concentrations to di!erent sources. Airborne lead is
mainly derived from the As-related source (53%) and
burning emissions (30%), the contribution from motor
vehicles is only 17%. Bromine, on the contrary, is mainly
derived from motor vehicles (61%). The values obtained
for Pb and Br explains again the low Br/Pb concentration ratio in TSP and weak correlation between the
two elements, as observed experimentally. Airborne
vanadium is found mainly in resuspended soil/road
dust (56%), the contribution from tra$c (S3 and S5) is
only 29%. Concerning As, 53% is derived from the

3139

As-related source and 27% is coming from resuspended

soil/road dust. Crustal elements Al, Ca, even though
having high correlation with factors F5 and F4, respectively, are mainly derived from resuspended soil/road
dust.

4. Temporal variations of source contributions

4.1. Variations in source strengths. Annual means
Based on the modelled monthly variations of source
contributions (Fig. 2a}g), the annual means and the
DWRs of source contributions were calculated and
shown in Table 5. The annual mean was calculated for
the period starting from December.
The annual means of soil-1 and soil-2 contributions
were practically constant during the monitoring period.
However, this is not the case for other sources, indicating
the variations in the source emission strengths. For
example, the burning emissions have sharply declined
since mid 1993 (Fig. 2b). This can be identi"ed as the
impact of the restriction, followed by a complete ban of
"recrackers in 1994. The source contribution declined
from 8% in 1993 to about 2% in the following years, that
can be ascribed to the contribution from other burning
source components. The fugitive cement dust had practically a!ected the sampling site only in 1994 (Fig. 2e). In
fact, the construction of a "ve-star hotel &&Saigon New
World'' was going on about 200}300 m southeast of the
sampling site and was accomplished in mid-1995. Thus,
the source composition had changed during the monitoring period with the number of source types reduced from
six to "ve since 1995. Furthermore, "recracker burning
component had been eliminated in 1994. Soil-1 remains
a predominant source which accounts for 72% of the
TSP mass.
The motor vehicle emission (S3) was also considerably
going down in 1994. This could happen as the impact of
measures introduced to mitigate tra$c congestion and to
restrict the movement of fuel-ine$cient cars within the
city. A guideline was also promulgated in 1994 stipulating the lead level in imported gasoline not in excess of
0.4 g l\.
4.2. Seasonal variations
Soil-1 exhibits a regular seasonal variation, with
a maximum in January and a minimum in September
(Fig. 2a) and is in signi"cant anticorrelation with the
monthly rainfall (r"!0.89). The DWR for soil-1 is 1.7.
For soil-2, DWR"1.6 and r"!0.8. Signi"cant anticorrelation of soil-1 and soil-2 with rainfall can be
explained by the wet soil and less dusty roads in the rainy
season.

3140

P.D. Hien et al. / Atmospheric Environment 33 (1999) 3133}3142

Fig. 2. Modelled monthly variations of source contributions to the TSP mass (lg m\).

Table 5
Summary statistics of source contributions
Source

Source contribution
mean ($ std. err. of
the mean), lg m\

Percent of TSP
mass

DWR

Annual mean ($ std. err.) of source contribution, lg m\

1993
1994
1995
1996

Soil-1
Burning
Auto
Construction
Soil-2
As-related

56.8$3.0
2.4$0.7
7.3$0.7
1.6$0.5
2.0$0.4
6.8$0.7

74
3
9.6
2
2.7
8.8

1.7
2.9
1.8


1.6
0.9

52$5
6$2
11$2
0.4$0.2
3$1
5.0$1

1993's values excluded.

Not calculated.

66$5
1.4$0.7
5$2
5$2
2$1
8$1.4

61$7
0.8$0.3
7$1
0.8$0.5
2$1
6$1

48$6
2$0.5
6$1
0
2$1
8$1

P.D. Hien et al. / Atmospheric Environment 33 (1999) 3133}3142

Table 6
Comparison of observed and estimated concentration values
Element

Observed mean Estimated mean Est./Ob.

(ng m\)
(ng m\)
(%)

Al
As
Br
Ca
Ce
Cl
Co
Cr
Cu
Fe
K
La
Lu
Mn
Na
Pb
Sb
Sc
Sm
Th
Ti
U
V
Zn
TSP

0.98
0.78
0.76
0.93
0.96
0.97
0.94
0.86
0.66
1
0.98
0.87
0.82
0.91
0.94
0.72
0.77
0.97
0.89
0.96
0.92
0.74
0.81
0.77
0.96

2761
1.47
9.73
3360
3.33
1204
1.23
9.38
1.39
3078
915
1.48
0.017
37.8
802
163
3.8
0.58
2.5
0.56
266
0.18
7.6
203
77700

2762
1.51
10
3270
3.13
1120
1.16
9.1
1.79
3030
960
1.56
0.015
32.5
947
174
6.4
0.66
2.5
0.56
247
0.21
10.5
169
77000

1
1.03
1.03
0.97
0.94
0.93
0.94
0.96
1.28
0.98
1.05
1.05
0.87
0.86
1.18
1.07
1.7
1.13
1
0.99
0.93
1.12
1.38
0.83
0.99

3141

collected on the air "lters. As lead is found highly abundant in the source pro"le of S6, it can be speculated that
As is derived from any small local coal burning lead
smelter. With such a speculation, the relatively high contribution of this source to TSP would be understandable,
even though coal has a low share in fuel consumption in
HCMC.

5. Conclusions
Varimax rotation factor analysis applied to monthly
data on elemental compositions of TSP in HCMC has
revealed six source types. Resuspended soil/road dust is
a primary source which accounts for 74% of the TSP
mass. Motor vehicle emissions is the major anthropogenic sources, which account for nearly 10% of the TSP
mass loading. The modelling of monthly variations of
source contributions at the receptor allowed to reveal
emission scenarios and the e!ects of meteorological conditions for the various source types. However, the predominance of resuspended soil/road dust in TSP has
greatly obscured details of anthropogenic and minor
sources. The source resolution and interpretation will
hopefully be improved based on PM-10 and PM-2.5 data
that are being currently collected and analysed.
Acknowledgements

For burning and motor vehicle emissions, the DWRs

calculated excluding 1993' values are 2.9 and 1.8, respectively. If suppose the source strengths are roughly constant as can be seen from the annual means in Table 5,
the seasonal changes of meteorological conditions will
fully account for the DWRs. Unlike soil-1 and soil-2, the
main factors facilitating the removal of air particles from
these sources in the rainy season are the ascending air
motion in cyclonic conditions, the rain out e!ect and the
stronger wind (Hien et al., 1997).
For As-containing particulates, no seasonal change
was found. The calculated DWR is 0.9, indicating that
fresh particulates from any local source was probably

The authors express their appreciation and gratitude

to the HCMC Department of Research, Technology and
Environment for "nancial support of this work.

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Table 7
Apportionment of elemental concentrations to di!erent sources (%)
Element

Soil-1

Burning

Auto

Construction

Soil-2

As-related

Al
As
Ca
Fe
Br
Pb
V

53
27
54
83
*
*
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9
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*
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*
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14
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7
*
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