Abstract
In Poland, high concentrations of particulate matter (with a diameter smaller than 2.5 or 10 μm) exceeding the WHO threshold values are often measured in winter, while ozone (O3) concentrations are high in spring. In winter high PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations are linked to high residential combustion and road transport. The main objective of this study was to assess performance of the Weather Research and Forecasting model with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) model in reproducing observations for a period of 2017-2018 covering various meteorological conditions. We compare modelled and observed exposure metrics for PM2.5, PM10 and O3 for two sets of the WRF-Chem model runs: with coarse and fine resolution emission inventory (European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) and Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection (CIEP), respectively). CIEP run reduces the negative bias of PM2.5 and PM10 and improves the model performance for number of days with exceedance of WHO (World Health Organization) threshold for PM2.5 and PM10 24-h mean concentration. High resolution emission inventory for primary aerosols helps to better distinguish polluted urban areas from non-urban ones. There are no large differences for the model performance for O3 and secondary inorganic aerosols, and high-resolution emission inventory does not improve the results in terms of 8-h rolling mean concentrations of ozone.
Highlights
Air quality is one of the most serious environmental issues with adverse impacts on population health and life quality
We investigate the impact of two different emission inventories: European-wide EMEP WebDab and national emission inventory developed in Poland by Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection (CIEP) on the model performance in terms of pollutant exposure metrics
We used the Regional Atmospheric Chemistry Mechanism (RACM) for the gas phase chemistry with the Modal Aerosol Dynamics Model for Europe (MADE) for the inorganic fraction and the VBS (Volatility Base Set) for the carbonaceous secondary fraction [32]. This is the first time that these chemical and aerosols schemes were used together for this area of Poland that is characterized by a large share of emission from residential coal combustion (46% of PM2.5 and PM10 is emitted from this sector; road transport is responsible for 10 and 7%, respectively)
Summary
Air quality is one of the most serious environmental issues with adverse impacts on population health and life quality. The pollutants with the most severe impact on population health are particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), ozone (O3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2). For these key pollutants, there are concentration-response functions (CRFs) which are included in cost–benefit analysis [2]. CRFs link the concentration of the key pollutants with health effects, including mortality, hospital admissions or incidence of asthma symptoms. In addition to the health-related effects, low air quality has other impact, e.g., deteriorating tourist attractiveness [3]
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