URBAN AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

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1 URBAN AIR QUALITY ASSESSMENT REQUIREMENTS ARISING FROM THE NEW EU AIR QUALITY DIRECTIVES K. D. van den Hout TNO Environment, Energy and Process Innovation, The Netherlands The new EU air quality directives (the "Framework Directive" 963EC and the related "Daughter Directives" on specific pollutants) define air quality thresholds such as limit values, target values and alert thresholds. They also prescribe minimum requirements for the assessment of air quality levels in the Member States. Assessment is not, as previously, solely based on measurements, but also on model calculations. Models play an increasingly important role both in the development of plans and programs to attain thresholds in the future, but also in the compliance checking of current air quality. It is to a large extent up to the Member States how they use models in the assessment of their air quality. However, the directives give some accuracy specifications and in addition the air quality limit values are specified in time and to some extent in space: resolution, coverage and statistical properties. Many of today s models are not capable of taking all these aspects into account. Consequently, the inclusion of modeling in legislation as an assessment technique has interesting implications for modellers. Models should e.g. be able to cover an entire year and have sufficient spatial resolution to calculate local hot spot concentration patterns. Furthermore, a better conceptual framework for the analysis of the uncertainty of the model results is needed. It is desirable that techniques become operational to combine measurement results and modelling results for urban air quality, such as data assimilation. An Air Quality Management System, URBIS, in which many of these aspects have been taken into account, will be shown. A COMPREHENSIVE MODELLING SYSTEM FOR OZONE EXPOSURE ASSESSMENT V. Gabusi, G. Finzi Università degli Studi di Brescia, Italy 48 Since high concentrations of tropospheric ozone are quite usual in Mediterranean areas and cause adverse effects on human health, materials and ecosystems, an integrated modelling system has been developed in order to perform a climatological simulation on photochemical pollution and allow estimating AOT indexes, useful indicators of ozone exposure. The modelling system, including 3D meteorological model CALMET, a flexible emission evaluation model POEM and photochemical transport model CALGRID, has been applied to a Northern Italy domain, including the whole of Regione Lombardia, characterised by complex terrain, high urban and industrial emissions and a close road network. Initial and boundary con-ditions for the domain under study are obtained by means of a nesting procedure from the EMEP Lagrangian Photoxidant Model. Since the long-term simulation presented some critical issues, as the run time and the resources management, a time splitting procedure has been developed to allow the use of a PC computing platform. The models have been run for the period April-September 996 to perform and compare sim-ulation results and monitored critical levels; some reference stations have been selected from the Regione Lombardia monitoring network by using a clustering analysis technique to characterise their representativeness in the area, in correspondence to different peculiar features of pollutant concentrations.

2 AIR POLLUTION ABATEMENT AND EXTERNALITIES: OPUS-AIR AS AN INTEGRATED TOOL FOR ASSESSING URBAN AIR POLLUTION CONTROL STRATEGIES N. Moussiopoulos, P.M. Tourlou, E.A. Kalognomou and Ch. Vlahocostas Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece Any air pollution abatement strategy has the ultimate target to reduce sufficiently air pollution levels in the areas of implementation. Forming long-term, efficient air pollution control strategies requires, however, knowledge of the costs associated with their implementation, as well as the economic benefits (or damages) arising from the adoption of the proposed measure(s). Therefore, the selection of the most appropriate bundles of emission abatement measures rests in the gratification of a variety of criteria and, thus, should be conducted on the basis of the multi-criteria analyses and the decision making theories. Towards this direction, LHTEE has developed the OPUS-AIR system, a tool for the assessment of measures that are put forward in order to reduce air pollution levels both on the local and regional scales. Based on the multipollutant, multi-effect concept, OPUS-AIR aims in providing policy-makers with a reliable tool for the integrated assessment of the most cost-effective packages of measures, the latter being allocated according to the particular features and needs of the areas examined. In its current form, OPUS-AIR is able to utilise the results produced by any air quality simulation model for performing an integrated assessment of the air pollution abatement strategies brought forward. The innovative feature of OPUS-AIR is the quantification (internalisation) of the external costs caused by air pollution and environmental degradation. Although the externalities accounted for by the system focus on human receptors, the introduction of appropriate correlation functions is currently being elaborated in order to take additionally into account the impact of air pollution on buildings, materials and other-than-human receptors. RUSSIAN URBAN AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM "ECOLOGIST-CITY" E. Genikhovich, A. Sosnin K. Chestnov Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory, Russia Integral LTD, Russia URBAN AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Russian urban air quality management system "Ecologist-City" is installed and actively used in 35 major cities in Russia and other republics of the fussr including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhnii Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg, Samara, Perm and others. It can be employed for managing urban emission database (built as a combination of databases for individual enterprises including stationary point, line and area sources) and database for background concentrations, statistical processing of the data sets, estimating the traffic-related emissions ("Highway-City" module), calculating the upper-limit (98th percentile) and mean annual concentration fields, mapping the results with a GIS system and evaluating the emission quotas for the main pollution sources. Dispersion algorithms are based on Russian national regulatory guidelines and, therefore, the results of calculations are legally authorized for implementation in the process of decision making in urban air quality management. This system can be run in both, diagnostic and prognostic, modes. The last one is used to evaluate the effectiveness of projected emission-control measures. Because of its modular structure, the system can be adjusted to specific requirements of the customers. 49

3 A TOOL TO EVALUATE THE AIR QUALITY IMPACT FOR INDUSTRIAL PLANTS (TEAP): AN APPLICATION OVER MADRID AREA R. San José, J. L. Pérez, F. Camacho, R. Barquín, J. Blanco and R.M. González Technical University of Madrid, Spain Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain The air quality impact of the industrial emissions is one of the most important areas of research in the last years not only because of the progressive public interest on environmental issues but also from the industrial approach. The interest of knowing the exaxct and detailed portion of different air concentrations in the area where an industrial plant is located in real-time and in forecasting mode opens a considerable number of possibilities which are usefull for the public, environmental authorities and industrial managers. In this contribution we will show the performance of a mathematical software tool which is used to forecast the air quality impact of an industrial source (virtual source in this example) over the Madrid domain. We have developed an expert system which is used as a visualand managing interface for presenting the information to the industrial manager almost on real-time and based on the results of the simulation of the mathematical model. The MM5 (PSUNCAR) mesoscale meteorlogical model and the CMAQ(EPA, Community Multiscale Air Quality Modelling System) are used to simulate the atmospheric flow in the model domain where the industrial source is centered. Results allow to the industrial manager the air quality forecasts and the air concentrations due to the forecasted industrial emission in order to apply optimal emission reduction strategies in case of excede the EU Directive limits for specific pollutants or just interested by the company. HEALTH EFFECTS CAUSED BY URBAN AIR POLLUTION FOR THE TRANSPORT SYSTEM PLAN SCENARIOS IN HELSINKI AREA J. Kukkonen, A. Karppinen, M. Pohjola, J. Härkönen, L. Wallenius, M. Jantunen, K. Koistinen, O. Hänninen, J. Pekkanen, M. Vallius, P. Aarnio 3, A. Kousa 3, T. Koskentalo 3, J. Ruuskanen 4, M. Kolehmainen 4 and T. Rotko 5 Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI), Helsinki, Finland National Public Health Institute (KTL), Kuopio, Finland 3 Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council (YTV), Helsinki, Finland 4 University of Kuopio (UKU), Finland 5 University of Helsinki, Finland We present a review of a research project called "Health Effects caused by Urban Air Pollution for the Transport System Plan Scenarios in Helsinki Area HEAT" (00 004; This project intends to evaluate traffic flows, emissions from mobile and stationary sources, ambient air concentrations, indoor concentrations, exposures to air pollutants and the resulting health effects. We focus on the present situation and the scenarios for the year 05, as defined in the so-called Transport System Plan (TSP) of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. The TSP will evaluate environmental impacts for various conceivable traffic and land use scenarios in the area. 50 The project aims to extend the existing urban air quality modelling system (e.g., Karppinen et al., 000 and 00) to include also treatments for evaluating the transport of pollutants from outdoor to indoor air, personal exposures and expected health consequences. We also aim to estimate the adverse health effects caused to the population

4 by air pollution, to simulate the burden of disease for each of the TSP scenarios, and to inter-compare their relative public health costs and benefits. The project eventually results in practical recommendations in order to abate and minimise the health effects caused by air pollutants in urban areas. References Karppinen, A, J. Kukkonen, T. Elolähde, M. Konttinen,T. Koskentalo and E. Rantakrans, 000. A modelling system for predicting urban air pollution, Model description and applications in the Helsinki metropolitan area. Atmos. Environ. 34-, pp Karppinen, A., Kukkonen, J., Pohjola, M., Kousa, A., Aarnio, P. and Koskentalo, T., 00. The spatial and temporal variation of the exposure of population to ambient air pollution in Helsinki. In: Cuvelier, C. et al., Seventh International Conference on Harmonisation within Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling for Regulatory Purposes, Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Ispra, Italy, pp AIRQUIS - AN URBAN AIR QUALITYMANAGEMENT SYSTEM T. Bøhler Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Norway The main feature of the modern air qualitymanagement system is the integrated approach that enables the user directly access to data for assessment and planning of actions to improve air quality. The demand of an integrated system to enable monitoring, assessment strategy planning, forecasting and warning of pollution situations has been and will be increasing in the future. The NILU developed AirQUIS system is a map oriented, user friendly air quality management system to be used in urban and industrial areas. It contains all modules necessary to perform air quality assessment, such as data bases for measurement and emissions, dispersion models and exposure module for health and materials. The AirQUIS system has been implemented in several cities in Norway and abroad. Examples of on line forecasting and air quality management by evaluating measures to improve air quality from cities in Norway and Asia in a cost effective way will be presented. Keywords:Integrated system, management, measurements, models, maps, URBAN AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS INTEGRATED URBAN AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS K. Karatzas and N. Moussiopoulos Aristotle University Thessaloniki, Greece One of the main elements in building an operational UAQMS is the maximisation of the benefits resulting from the usage of existing infrastructures and system components at each site. Cities would like to make use of existing database schemes and GIS applications, and also to include internet applications that might be available. The current paper presents practical solutions for the integration of air quality related observations and UAQMS components into a flexible, modular and user tailored system, that can either be used as a stand alone application 5

5 or be combined with other systems. For this purpose, the use of wireless telecommunications channels will be discussed, for the integration of environmental observations. In addition, simple statistical tools will be presented for the analysis of time series as a first step towards the developments of an operationally effective AQ forecasting module. Then, the use of public domain software will be presented for the development of internet applications for the dissemination and management of environmental information. As an extension to existing systems, public domain modules that allow for the dissemination of environmental information via SMS, WAP and will also be discussed. Last, the use of air quality modelling services will be discussed. All modules will be presented with the aid of already working examples. PROVIDING CITIZEN-CENTRED AIR QUALITY INFORMATION DISSEMINATION ON MULTI-MODAL INFORMATION CHANNELS: THE APNEE PROJECT T. Rose Research Institute for Applied Knowledge Processing (FAW), Germany Citizens call for timely and high-quality environ-mental in-formation for reasons of comfort and health care by nature. This interest recommends an easy-to-understand and easy-to-access presentation of such informa-tion. Rather than presenting raw data in an extensive fashion, one ought to engineer customisable information services, that can be tailored to individual user groups, be it for reasons of content or be it for reasons of citizen s reachability. In APNEE (Air Pollution Network for Early warning and information Exchange in Europe), we have been designing information services that draw upon various information channels, i.e. mobile-technologies, interactive portals for the Internet, as well as street panels for municipality usage scenarios. In a nutshell, the APNEE system promotes user-friendly information manage-ment and dissemination via multiple information channels, and can be applied in multiple infor-mation domains or be part of relevant applications or service back bones. Based on such high quality dissemination services, even environmental information will turn into an attractive product once perceived and provided as indicators for emerging interests of citizens towards levels of comfort. Yet, commercial content providers have to be attracted to offer this kind of services, be it as portal or messaging services. In this paper we report on the design of information services that are offered by nongovernmental and commercial organisations. Field trials unveiled the preparedness and willingness of the citizen for services on a charge basis if the value-added can be grasped. 5