High resolution multi-scale air quality modelling for all streets in Denmark

Steen Solvang Jensen,Matthias Ketzel,Thomas Becker,Jesper Christensen,Jørgen Brandt,Marlene Plejdrup,Morten Winther,Ole-Kenneth Nielsen,Ole Hertel,Thomas Ellermann

doi:10.1016/j.trd.2017.02.019

Abstract

The annual concentrations of NO2, PM2.5 and PM10 in 2012 have for the first time been modelled for all 2.4million addresses in Denmark based on a multi-scale air quality modelling approach. All addresses include residential, industrial, institutional, shop, school, restaurant addresses etc. The approach is based on a suite of chemistry-transport models all developed at Aarhus University and includes regional modelling, urban background modelling and street modelling. Information about traffic volumes is based on a newly developed national Danish Transport Model, and national travel speed data have been obtained from a recent dataset based on GPS readings of vehicles. Air quality model results are validated by comparisons with measurements obtained from the fixed site monitoring stations under the Danish Air Quality Monitoring Programme. The validation showed that calculated street concentrations of NO2 for the five available street monitoring stations are within −27% to +12%. The model results were also verified with comparisons with previous model results for NO2 at 98 selected streets in Copenhagen and 31 streets in Aalborg. The verification showed good correlation in Copenhagen (r2=0.70) and fairly good agreement in Aalborg (r2=0.60). The target groups for the air quality mapping of all Danish addresses are the general public for information and awareness about air quality, and local and national authorities whom may use the information as a screening tool for air quality assessment. The air quality map has been provided on a WebGIS platform on the internet in September 2016 (http://luftenpaadinvej.au.dk). The air quality map is named AirStreet for Air Quality at Your Street.

Highlights

Health effects related to outdoor air pollution include premature mortality as well as a range of morbidities caused by short-term and long-term exposure
In this paper we present and evaluate a high resolution national air quality map for Denmark based on multi-scale modelling from regional to urban background concentrations and further down to street concentrations
Model calculations are based on the above described air quality models and inputs. For this analysis the predicted street configuration from the Danish Air Quality Monitoring Programme was used. This is based on AirGIS predictions, but predicted street configuration has manually been corrected if the predicted street configuration was not representative of the real street configuration seen from an air pollution point of view

Summary

Introduction

Health effects related to outdoor air pollution include premature mortality as well as a range of morbidities caused by short-term and long-term exposure. The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that the global burden of premature death for 2012 is about 3.7 million due to outdoor air (WHO, 2014). The European Environmental Agency (EEA) estimates that the health impacts attributable to outdoor air pollution in Europe (over 40 countries) in 2012 are about 432,000 premature deaths due to PM2.5 (long-term exposure), 75,000 deaths due to NO2 (long-term exposure) and 17,000. For Denmark the estimate is about 3500 deaths for a population of 5.7 million inhabitants (Brandt et al, 2013a)

Methods

Results

Conclusion