TITLE:
Aeolian Dust Forecast in Arid and Semiarid Regions of Peru and Chile and Their Contribution over Particulate Matter Concentration
AUTHORS:
Albert Salvador, Raúl Arasa, Bernat Codina
KEYWORDS:
Air Quality Modelling, WRF-CMAQ, Wind Erodibility, Dust, Mining Industry
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection,
Vol.4 No.1,
January
29,
2016
ABSTRACT: The dust
generated in arid areas of the planet is a very important source of particulate
matter in the air, especially favoured by the presence of winds that can raise
erodible material from the surface. These particles have an important influence
when making an assessment of the air quality, due to its direct and indirect
impact on public health. In this work, we reproduce episodes of aeolian dusts
in the desert areas of Peru and Chile, where high dust concentration events are
common and many mining industries are located. The differentiation of the
contribution of particulate matter from Aeolian dusts and mining activities of
the area is an important issue, as well as trying to forecast these events. For
this purpose, we have calculated an erodibility factor at high resolution that,
combined with WRF meteorological output and the GOCART dust scheme, gives the
emission of particulate matter. We have introduced the emissions in the
photochemical model CMAQ, which determines the concentrations in the different
domains, and we have observed that the natural dust contributes greatly to
pollution in the area, exceeding permissible limit values in the area of
Paracas in Peru, and with contributions of up to 23% of the total particulate
matter in the city of Calama in Chile, resulting non-negligible values for the
evaluation of air quality.