Modelling, Monitoring and Management of Air Pollution

Urban air pollution problems are continuing to increase in many parts of the world and air pollutants originating from urban regions are now recognized as increasing sources of regional- and global-scale pollution. Our ability to reduce this problem through regulation is limited by concerns about possible economic impacts and changes in standards of living. Nevertheless, improvements in air quality in areas such as Los Angeles, once considered the most polluted city in the world, provide the motivation to proceed with the battle through technological innovation, conservation, and regulation. This book contains over 100 contributions from the Seventh International Air Pollution Conference, held in July 1999. Bringing together recent results from state-of-the-art research projects world-wide, the goal of this meeting was to increase public awareness of air pollution issues and lay the groundwork for further investigations. Topics discussed include turbulence modelling at small and meso scales, pollution engineering, pollution management, urban and suburban transport emissions, urban air pollution, emission inventories and modelling, health problems, indoor pollution, fluid mechanics for environmental problems, monitoring and field studies, chemistry of air pollution, air pollution modelling, aerosols and particles, and air pollution meteorology.

Table of Contents:
Section 1 - Turbulence Modelling at Small and Meso Scales: Calibration of the dispersion code SAFE_AIR using a release in nocturnal low wind conditions; Airflow and dispersion around multiple buildings; An algebraic expression for the eddy diffusivity in the residual layer; A validation of large eddy simulation for complex urban environments; A model for simulating airflow and pollutant dispersion around buildings; Large-eddy simulation of the stable boundary layer and implications for transport and dispersion; Application of adaptive grid refinement to plume modeling. Section 2 - Pollution Engineering: Reduction of air pollutants emissions from industrial furnaces and boilers; Design and use of a mobile air treatment exhaust system for air pollution control during the removal of breached drums of hazardous waste at Drum Burial Area V, Panoche Landfill, Solano County, California; Numerical simulation of flow patterns of disks in the symmetric moving granular filter bed; Internet applications as a link between the environmental information systems and public; Hybrid processes for the removal of VOCs in gaseous emissions; A phenomenological approach to the performance of shutter type air curtains. Section 3 - Pollution Management: An assessment of the effects of local government organisation on air quality management practices; Reduction of air pollution by pollution prevention approach in the Czech Republic; Determination of optimal pollution levels through multiple-criteria decision making: an application to the Spanish electricity sector; Communication and co-operation within and between local authorities - an attempt to quantify management practices and their effect on the air quality management process; Developments in urban local authority capability and practice in air quality management: a temporal comparison between practice in 1994 and 1998; Best practice in English Local Air Quality Management: principles illustrated by some examples of current practice ; The UK National Air Quality Strategy: the effects of the proposed changes on Local Air Quality Management; Refinery MACT economics: The interaction of technology, feed quality and regulatory standards. Section 4 - Urban and Suburban Transport Emissions: The range and effectiveness of short-term measures to reduce traffic emissions during high air pollution episodes; Urban air pollution caused by motor-traffic; Integrating a new traffic emissions model with an urban dispersion model: an innovative approach for urban transport policies assessment and air quality management; Vehicular modal emission and fuel consumption factors in Hong Kong. Section 5 - Urban Air Pollution: Photochemical modelling of the Barcelona area under weak pressure synoptic summer conditions; Urban air pollution and forests; The use of passive sampler for the measurement of street level air pollutants; Air pollution in Reykjvik, the capital of Iceland; Optimization of urban geometry to minimize the effect of automotive pollution. Section 6 - Emission Inventories and Modelling: Global a-hexachlorocyclohexane emission with 1N x 1N longitude/latitude resolution; PAH emission from the steel and iron industries; Atmospheric emission data inventory for air quality planning at a regional scale; A methodology for examining the long-range transport and the source-receptor relationships for acidic pollutants; Comparing contribution of different NMHC sources using a receptor model and emission inventory in Mexico City; Influence of ship emission on atmospheric pollutant concentration around Osaka Bay area, Japan; Estimate of volatile organic compounds emissions from vegetation in regional air quality management plans; Identification of emission sources by trace metal concentration: Cement industry as case study. Section 7 - Health Problems: Is the internal burden in human beings reflected by air pollution measurements?; Estimation of health damage due to emission of air pollutants by cars: the canyon effect; Uncertainty about components of PM10 and their toxicities and its effect on estimation of health damage; Prediction of children's deciduous teeth lead concentrations using multiple linear regression and logistic models. Section 8 - Indoor Pollution: Human exposure to particles due to indoor cleaning activities; A study on indoor air quality and photochemical pollution in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy; Outdoor-indoor air quality in Riyadh: NO, NO2 and O3. Section 9 - Fluid Mechanics for Environmental Problems: Applicability of the FLUENT computational fluid dynamics package to air quality problems; Impact of the thermal stratification on the atmospheric flow over a topography; Modelling of trace gas pollutants in human inhalation test chambers. Section 10 - Monitoring and Field Studies: Temporal and spatial variation of volatile hydrocarbon compounds in the Milan area; Monitoring the Bavarian nuclear power plants with an on-line lagrangian dispersion model - improving the prognoses using precipitation and mixing height data; Ozone measurements in Northern Italy and in Canton Ticino, Switzerland; Biomarkers of the effect of VOC exposure: Recent developments; Preliminary results of atmospheric trace metal deposition in Portugal quantified by moss biomonitoring; Variability of sea-salt deposition assessed by lichen monitoring in the south-west Portuguese coast; A year's radon measurements in Milan and at EMEP station in Ispra (Lake Maggiore, Italy); Day-night ozone patterns found in the city of Cartagena; Ozone and NOy in the Milan plume: The episode of June 19-21, 1998; Development of a personal computer software tool for guided analysis of speciated hydrocarbon, particulate matter, and other ambient air quality data; A characterization of the weekday-weekend behavior of ambient ozone concentrations in California; Linking changes in ozone to changes in emissions and meteorology. Section 11 - Chemistry of Air Pollution: Atmospheric chemistry, aerosols and climate: global coupling; Modelling heterogeneous reactions in air pollution models; Applicability of a photochemical box model over complex coastal areas; Assessment of the organic compound reactivity concept for regulatory applications in California; An atmosphere -- chemistry model hierarchy. Section 12 - Air Pollution Modelling: Improved operational mesoscale urban and regional air quality models by using Internet/JAVA tools; Forest fires and air pollution: A local and a global perspective; Aircraft emissions and air quality of the tropopause region - a model study of the North Atlantic flight corridor; A highly accurate numerical advection algorithm for calculating transport of atmospheric pollutants; Why and how to harmonise air pollution impact assessment models?; On-line coupling between a mesoscale meteorological model and gas phase/aerosol modules: preliminary results; Comparison of the performance of MAQSIP and SAQM in modeling California's South Coast Air Basin; Sensitivity of the AERMOD air quality model to the selection of land use parameters; An integrated assessment of acidification. eutrophication and ozone formation using regional scale air pollution models; Air pollutant transport within the Mexico City Basin; Evaluation and comparison of AERMOD and HPDM models; Modelling dispersion of heavy particulate matter; MONTECARLO - a new, fully-integrated PC software for the 3D simulation and visualization of air pollution dispersion using Monte Carlo Lagrangian Particle (MCLP) techniques; A semi-empirical model relating meteorology and ozone in the San Francisco Bay area;An air quality model for central Mexico; One-atmosphere dynamics description in the Models-3 Community Multi-Scale Air Quality (CMAQ) modeling system; Photochemical reactivity of organic compounds in central California: a grid-based modeling study; An European heavy pollution episode simulated at the synoptic, regional and local scales; Modelling air quality episodes for Hong Kong. Section 13 - Aerosols and Particles: A semi-empirical model for evaluating urban particulate matter concentrations; Generation of polar organic aerosols from combustion processes; The effect of rain on suspended particulate matter and other pollutants in an urban area; The effects of calcium and magnesium on size-distributed particulate nitrate and ammonium in an urban area; Development of the UAM-VPM ozone/particulate modeling system; Discrete single particle microanalysis of soots; Impact of aerosol size representations on aerosol modeling; A study of sulfur dioxide oxidation pathways over a range of liquid water contents, pHs and temperatures; Characteristics of raindrop acidification by concurrent washout of SO2(g) and HNO3(g). Section 14 - Air Pollution Meteorology: Comparison of nesting techniques within a meteorological model; Visibility trends in the Los Angeles Basin, 1933 - present; Vertical velocity P.d.f. in different atmospheric turbulence conditions assessed by a new formulation of the Gram-Charlier method; Numerical simulations of vertically distributed clouds in the coastal area; Application of neural networks to model the Monin-Obukhov length and the mixed-layer height from ground-based meteorological data; Implementation of a modern meteorological and radiological early warning system in Algeria; Evaluation of mixing height over complex coastal terrain.