At the level of Oradea city, the observations on the air quality are being ensured by the Environment Protection Agency by the intermediate of its own domestic monitoring system; there are three steady monitoring points namely: at the headquarters of the Environment Protection Agency – Bihor branch, on Corneliu Coposu Street at the Children Hospital, and at Environment Protection Faculty. The placement of monitoring points was carried out by taking into consideration the pollution generating factors concentrated in these areas. The air quality monitoring in Oradea is being performed through long term measurements of the air polluting substances, scheduled on 24 hours, respectively.  The aim of this paper is to assess the air pollution with sulphur dioxide in the Oradea city area, this indicator being monitored for a 15 year time span, from 1994 to 2008, respectively. The main methods used in the current research are the following: analysis method, comparative method, mathematics-statistics method and graphs. By means of statistics-mathematics methods, we computed the data collected from the Environment Protection Agency. The results we had obtained through mathematics and statistics method were then translated into graphs in order to highlight clearly the air polluter’s unsteadiness in time. This gas monitoring must be corroborated with the fact that, in Romania, there is an antipollution maximum rated value, which, for median values is 0.250 mg/m3/24 hours, and for a 30 minutes time, span must not exceed the maximum rated value of 0.75 mg/m3 (750 μ/m3). In the case of the period we monitored, the average values of sulphur dioxide within Oradea city area did not overrun the standards rather than temporarily and accidentally. At this fortunate situation the wind, blowing from South directions, was a major factor in dispersing the polluters. The variations of sulphur dioxide gas emissions for a one year time span highlight the fact that larger amounts are in the cold period of the year (from November to March), when the heating stations and other heating sources activity is intensive as well as during summer time, when road traffic quotas are higher than in the rest of the year. The critical areas from the air pollution point of view are located at the proximity of streets and boulevards with an intensive traffic, major crossroads, industrial waste dumps, unprotected waste dumps/refuses, animal farms, chemical industry, although the later ones have reduced substantially their production gen erating activities.

polluting; sulphur dioxide; maximum rated values of concentration; monitoring point

Presentation: oral