There are many compelling reasons to conduct an intensive PM monitoring campaign in Pittsburgh.
Elderly people represent a significant fraction of the population.
The area is located between the power plants of the Midwest and the large urban centers of the East. This will make source-receptor relationships much easier to quantify compared to areas closer to the eastern seaboard where the urban centers interact with each other strongly. There is a considerable database of PM measurements in Pittsburgh and in the proposed Supersite area. The CMU team is the main contributor to this database. Despite the available database a number of important issues regarding PM composition, properties, regional and local sources, etc., have yet to be elucidated.