Particulate matter pollution is a serious environmental issue mainly due to the presence of toxic substances and trace
metals in the atmosphere from a variety of pollution emission sources. Information about aerosol composition and their
sources especially during pollution events can be further used to establish strategies for the reduction of particulate
matter concentration. The objective in the present study was to analyse variations in total suspended particle (TSP) mass
concentration and heavy metal components for evaluating the atmospheric loadings of substances with different sources
as well as to further examine the relationship between the occurrence of African dust intrusions and metallic species
concentrations at our coastal station located in South Spain. Non-destructive Wavelength-Dispersive X-Ray
Fluorescence (WDXRF) analysis has been applied for the determination of multi-element contents of atmospheric
particulate matter.
