Cartagena is a Mediterranean city in the region of Murcia with an important seaport, situated at 37º 37’ 08’’ N, 0º 59’ 11’’ W in Southwest Europe. This town is surrounded by mountains, Escalón de Cartagena, with a narrow valley towards the sea at its southern side. It is one of the more arid zones in Spain, with mild temperature due to the maritime influence, with a maximum rainfall of 300 mm/year.
Our research group began the aeropalynological studies in Cartagena in 1989, in connection with a severe asthmathic outbreak, using the methodology developed by Suárez-Cervera & Seoane-Camba (1983). Since 1992, our group is part of the Aerobiological Spanish Network (REA), which sends data every week from the different sampling sites in Spain to the European Aeroallergen Network set in Vienna. The initial sampler was complemented by a volumetric pollen and particles sampler (Hirst Sampler, Lanzoni VPPS-2000).
In previous studies, the influence of meteorological parameters on airborne pollen concentrations have been analyzed, showing different effects, i.e., a double effect of rain on pollen concentrations or the importance of wind speed ranges in relation to pollen sources location, so for plants situated near the sampler, an increase on wind speed made a decrease on pollen counts, meanwhile for plants located far from the sampler, an increase on wind speed made also an increase on pollen counts.
Forecasting pollen multiple regression models have been previously developed. The best of them considered rainfall, humidity and sunshine as independent variables, explaining only 22% of variation in airborne pollen concentration. In order to improve our forecasting concentrations, we have used logistic models with these data.
This paper shows synoptic classifications for the city of Cartagena, through a multivariate analysis of meteorological data from 4 sampling towers and a SODAR, belonging to the Pollution Control Network of Cartagena City Hall. We also present the logistic models results, which achieve a higher corrected percentage, reaching more than 80%.