TITLE:
Analysis of Contributions to NO2 Ambient Air Quality Levels in Madrid City (Spain) through Modeling. Implications for the Development of Policies and Air Quality Monitoring
AUTHORS:
Rafael Borge, David de la Paz, Julio Lumbreras, Javier Pérez, Michel Vedrenne
KEYWORDS:
Air Quality Modeling; Source Apportionment; NO2; CMAQ; Urban Air Quality; Madrid
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection,
Vol.2 No.1,
January
15,
2014
ABSTRACT: As environmental standards become more
stringent (e.g. European Directive 2008/50/EC), more reliable and sophisticated
modeling tools are needed to simulate measures and plans that may effectively
tackle air quality exceedances, common in large cities across Europe,
particularly for NO2. Modeling air quality in urban areas is rather complex
since observed concentration values are a consequence of the interaction of
multiple sources and processes that involve a wide range of spatial and
temporal scales. Besides a consistent and robust multi-scale modeling system,
comprehensive and flexible emission inventories are needed. This paper
discusses the application of the WRF-SMOKE-CMAQ system to the Madrid city
(Spain) to assess the contribution of the main emitting sectors in the region.
A detailed emission inventory was compiled for this purpose. This inventory
relies on bottom-up methods for the most important sources. It is coupled with
the regional traffic model and it makes use of an extensive database of industrial,
commercial and residential combustion plants. Less relevant sources are
downscaled from national or regional inventories. This paper reports the
methodology and main results of the source apportionment study performed to
understand the origin of pollution (main sectors and geographical areas) and
define clear targets for the abatement strategy. Finally the structure of the
air quality monitoring is analyzed and discussed to identify options to improve
the monitoring strategy not only in the Madrid city but the whole metropolitan
area.