Evaluation of a Simple Spatially Explicit Model of Atmospheric Transport of Pollutants in Europe

Abstract

In recent years, initiatives of the European chemical industry lead to the development of a simplified, spatially explicit, continental scale atmospheric transport model called ADEPT. After a description of the model and its assumptions, we compare results for NOx, SOx, and benzene with existing atmospheric concentration observations, and with the box model which is at the basis of the well-known European Union System for the Evaluation of Substances (EUSES); moreover, we provide an interpretation of the ADEPT model in terms of extremely simple analytical models, which can be used to approximate atmospheric transport at the continental scale from a generic distribution of emission sources. Based on these results, we recommend the use of the ADEPT model in place of traditional box models for screening level calculations, when the focus is on the effects of emissions far from the source. The ADEPT model may be mimicked by a simplified Gaussian model for a first assessment at the continental scale, when dealing with emissions following a spatial distribution different from the one of population density assumed in ADEPT. The widely used box models may provide results similar to the ones of ADEPT, when the latter are averaged over sufficiently large regions.