Revised estimates of construction activity and emissions: Effects on ozone and elemental carbon concentrations in southern California

Abstract

Emissions from diesel-powered construction equipment are an important source of nitrogen oxides (NO x) and particulate matter (PM). A new emission inventory for construction equipment emissions is developed based on surveys of diesel fuel use; the revised inventory is compared to current emission inventories. California's OFFROAD model estimates are 4.5 and 3.1 times greater, for NO x and PM respectively, than the fuel-based estimates developed here. The most relevant uncertainties are the overall amount of construction activity/diesel fuel use, exhaust emission factors for PM and NO x, and the spatial allocation of emissions to county level and finer spatial scales. Construction permit data were used in this study to estimate spatial distributions of emissions; the resulting distribution is well correlated with population growth. An air quality model was used to assess the impacts of revised emission estimates. Increases of up to 15 ppb in predicted peak ozone concentrations were found in southern California. Elemental carbon and fine particle mass concentrations were in better agreement with observations using revised emission estimates, whereas negative bias in predictions of ambient NO x concentrations increased.