Assessment of measurement error for the Hong Kong PM₁₀and PM_2.5 speciation networks

Eleven years of collocated data collected at two sites in the Hong Kong PM₁₀ speciation network were used to assess measurement precision and generate error structures for source apportionment modeling. Overall, the data quality was deemed to be very good. The PM₁₀ collocated data relationships suggest that additional significant figures could be retained in the data set for some of the species. An analysis should be conducted to determine the appropriate number of significant figures. This refinement would improve the ability to assess measurement uncertainty using the collocated data and might improve the data quality. For PM₁₀, laboratory blanks are routinely analyzed but field blanks are currently not being collected. It would be very helpful to routinely collect field blanks data so the limit of quantification (LOQ) could be assessed. The field blanks LOQs are expected to be higher than would be estimated from the laboratory blanks because there can be additional contamination of the filters during transport and handling. LOQ might provide a better estimate than the laboratory MDL or effective MDL when assessing species detectability which is an important data pre-conditioning step for source apportionment modeling. (Table Presented).