Assessment of the net mitigation effect of vegetative environmental buffer (VEB) to reduce ammonia and particulate matter (PM) emissions

Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), such as poultry farms, contribute significantly to air pollution, particularly ammonia (NH 3 ) and particulate matter (PM) emissions. Vegetative environmental buffers (VEBs) offer a sustainable, cost-effective, and low-maintenance solution for mitigating NH 3 and PM emissions from CAFOs, and some previous studies showed that pollutant concentrations behind the VEBs were substantially reduced compared with concentration directly from the source. However, due to the lack of a controlled dataset for non-VEB situations, the net effect of VEBs could hardly be assessed. Thus, the dataset from the previous study was used to develop a methodology for quantitatively evaluating the efficacy of VEBs in reducing NH 3 and PM emissions from a poultry house, and to distinguish the net pollutant reduction achieved by VEBs from those resulting merely from atmospheric dilution and dispersion. The results showed that VEB can effectively mitigate air pollutants emissions and attributes enhanced ground-level reductions of NH 3 (72.7 % ± 9.1 %), total suspended particle (TSP) (61.9 % ± 10.0 %), PM 10 (62.5 % ± 9.9 %) and PM 2.5 (94.6 % ± 6.5 %). In addition, VEB demonstrated better mitigation performance during daytime. Meteorological conditions showed no correlation with pollutant concentrations or enhanced reduction ratios while significant positive correlations between reductions of NH 3 and PM were also observed. These results demonstrated that VEBs are effective in reducing NH 3 and PM emissions from poultry houses. The results from this study will inform conservation practice guidelines and assist land managers in employing VEBs for poultry house emitted air pollution reductions. • Vegetative environmental buffer (VEB) can reduce ground-level NH 3 by 72.7 % ± 9.1 %. • VEB can reduce ground-level total suspended particles (TSP) by 61.9 % ± 10.0 %. • VEB can reduce ground-level PM 2.5 and PM 10 by 94.6 % ± 6.5 % and 62.5 % ± 9.9 %. • Daytime performance of VEB was slightly better than nighttime. • Mitigation efficiencies of the pollutants were positively intercorrelated.