Air Quality Emissions Research Articles

North Korean CO emissions reconstruction using DMZ ground observations, TROPOMI space-borne data, and the CMAQ air quality model

Emission uncertainty in North Korea can act as an obstacle when developing air pollution management plans in the country and neighboring countries when the transboundary transport of air pollutants is considered. This study introduces a novel approach for adjusting and reallocating North Korean CO emissions, aiming to complement the limited observational and emissions data on the country's air pollutants. We utilized ground observations from demilitarized zone (DMZ) and vertical column density (VCD) data from a TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), which were combined with the Community Multi-Scale Air Quality (CMAQ) chemistry transport model simulations. The Clean Air Support System (CAPSS) and Satellite Integrated Joint Monitoring of Air Quality (SIJAQ) emissions inventories served as the basis for our initial simulations. A two-step procedure was proposed to adjust both the emission intensity and the spatial distribution of emissions. First, air quality simulations were conducted to explore model sensitivity to changes in North Korean CO emissions with respect to ground concentrations. DMZ observations then constrained these simulations to estimate corresponding emission intensity. Second, the spatial structure of North Korean CO emission sources was reconstructed with the help of TROPOMI CO VCD distributions. Our two-step hybrid method outperformed individual emissions adjustment and spatial reallocation based solely on surface or satellite observations. Validation using ground observations from the Chinese Dandong site near the China-North Korea border revealed significantly improved model simulations when applying the updated CO emissions. The adjusted CO emissions were 10.9 times higher than those derived from the bottom-up emissions used in this study, highlighting the lack of information on North Korean pollutants and emission sources. This approach offers an efficient and practical solution for identifying potential missing emission sources when there is limited on-site information about air quality on emissions.

A cross-country comparative analysis of congestion pricing systems: Lessons for decarbonizing transportation

Alongside national and sub-national climate action, local governments play a particularly important role in implementing climate change mitigation policy. While substantial efforts are being taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in some communities, additional efforts are needed to encourage behavioural change in driving demand and mode of transportation. Congestion pricing is a key policy which can motivate this change. Using a comparative analysis of congestion pricing systems worldwide, this study examines government policy documents and academic literature to identify policy design features that are most desirable for achieving GHG and air quality emissions targets. Specifically, congestion pricing policies are evaluated against the attributes of implementation context, design characteristics, effectiveness, and political acceptability. In total, 16 congestion pricing systems across 11 cities in OECD member countries are assessed. Findings suggest that area-based congestion pricing systems can provide local governments with a relatively cost-effective tool to implement consistent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in areas with a pre-existing air quality concern. Congestion pricing policies can achieve broad acceptability with thoughtful design and implementation focusing on equity and user engagement.

Management analysis and environmental monitoring of evaluation quality environment at Surabaya Islamic Hospital

Background: Law No. 32 of the year 2009 and the government regulation of Indonesian Republic No. 27 of the year 2012 concerning "Environmental Permits" emphasizes that every business and activity that has impacts on the environment needs to be analyzed from the beginning in order to measures and to control negative impacts as early as possible. Assessment of environmental quality in the Surabaya Islamic Hospital environment is necessary to fulfill several assessment indicators. This study aims to analyze requirements related to existing environmental quality. Methods: This cross-sectional study processes secondary data in the health unit environment of the Surabaya Islamic Hospital in semester 1 of 2021. Results: Surabaya Islamic Hospital in Semester I of 2021 becomes a class B private hospital operating with a capacity of 188 beds. Electricity and monthly water usage are 81,574.83 kWh/month and 5,695.5 m3/month, respectively. The number of workers available at the Surabaya Islamic Hospital is as many as 614 workers. Laboratory test results for wastewater and ambient air quality at the Surabaya Islamic Hospital Semester I of 2021 meet the raw quality score. Transportation of toxic and hazardous medical waste materials at the Surabaya Islamic Hospital Semester I of 2021 is taken almost every day (around 4 times a week), and B3 packaging waste management using B3/HD bottles and infusion bottles during the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be carried out every month/according to schedule. There is accumulation due to PPKM, and during the first semester of 2021, only 2x transportation can be carried out, namely in March and April 2021. Conclusion: Several feasibility parameters for ambient air quality, emission air quality, and physical and chemical examination of liquid and solid wastewater have met the requirements of the evaluation structure set by the Surabaya Islamic Hospital.

Predictability of fossil fuel CO2 from air quality emissions

Quantifying the coevolution of greenhouse gases and air quality pollutants can provide insight into underlying anthropogenic processes enabling predictions of their emission trajectories. Here, we classify the dynamics of historic emissions in terms of a modified Environmental Kuznets Curve (MEKC), which postulates the coevolution of fossil fuel CO2 (FFCO2) and NOx emissions as a function of macroeconomic development. The MEKC broadly captures the historic FFCO2-NOx dynamical regimes for countries including the US, China, and India as well as IPCC scenarios. Given these dynamics, we find the predictive skill of FFCO2 given NOx emissions constrained by satellite data is less than 2% error at one-year lags for many countries and less than 10% for 4-year lags. The proposed framework in conjunction with an increasing satellite constellation provides valuable guidance to near-term emission scenario development and evaluation at time-scales relevant to international assessments such as the Global Stocktake.

Integrated Modelling Assessment of Low Carbon and Air Quality Plan Synergies

Climate Change and Air Quality are the most crucial environmental challenges for population health and our societies. Decision makers at different scales (European, national, and regional) define low carbon and air quality plans to reduce GHG (CO2, CH4, N2O) and air pollution precursors (NOx, NMVOC, NH3, SOx, primary PM2.5) emissions. Integrated Assessment Modelling is a methodology that can support decision makers. In this paper, we formalize a decision problem based on a multi-objective approach. The solution to the problem is the efficient low carbon and air quality emission reduction measure set for the Lombardy region, one of the most polluted areas in Europe, assuming the current energy legislation in 2030.

Environmental monitoring and policy for sustainable public facilities: case study of a hospital in Yogyakarta

Sustainability is one of the most important issues in the recent year for almost all country in the world. Good environmental monitoring and policy is needed to meet the sustainability. Hospital is one of the most important public facilities, especially during pandemic situation. Therefore, environmental monitoring for this building is necessary. The purpose of this research is to know the monitoring result of a hospital in Yogyakarta by using government regulation. Effluent of wastewater (BOD, COD, TSS, TDS, Coliform, etc.), ambient and emission air quality (SO2, NO2, CO, particulate, etc.) and solid waste management are investigated periodically by using standard regulation. The findings of the present study showed that almost all tested parameters are under the permitted level of the local regulation (Yogyakarta Province). Best practice of the hospital should be considered as a good contribution in term of sustainability.

Seasonal Variations and Effect of COVID-19 Lockdown Restrictions on the Air Quality in the Cities of Kazakhstan

The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on different air pollutants in eight cities of Kazakhstan by employing the data from the National Air Quality Monitoring Network. We selected eight cities located in different regions of the country with varied climatic and geographic conditions and emissions sources, providing good conditions for studying the differences in responses of air quality to COVID-19. Due to severe winters, the heating season in Kazakhstan has a significant impact on air quality; therefore, annual winter/spring changes in air quality were also compared. The positive effect of the COVID-19 lockdown (spring 2020) on NO2 and CO levels was observed in 5 and 3 cities, respectively (out of 8). Total Suspended Particles and SO2 exhibited a more complicated response to COVID-19 lockdown: cities had a varying effect. No impact of lockdown measures was observed in industrial cities (Ust-Kamenegorsk and Karagandy), but seasonal changes were significant. In addition, despite some improvements during the lockdown period, the air quality in seven out of eight cities was still below the safety levels. The atmospheric quality in urban areas of Kazakhstan has not improved significantly due to the lockdown measures. This study underscores the importance of imposing stricter air quality emission control over industrial enterprises and coal-fired power plants.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40710-022-00603-w.

Environmental Pollution Analysis and Impact Study—A Case Study for the Salton Sea in California

A natural experiment conducted on the shrinking Salton Sea, a saline lake in California, showed that each one foot drop in lake elevation resulted in a 2.6% average increase in PM2.5 concentrations. The shrinking has caused the asthma rate continues to increase among children, with one in five children being sent to the emergency department, which is related to asthma. In this paper, several data-driven machine learning (ML) models are developed for forecasting air quality and dust emission to study, evaluate and predict the impacts on human health due to the shrinkage of the sea, such as the Salton Sea. The paper presents an improved long short-term memory (LSTM) model to predict the hourly air quality (O3 and CO) based on air pollutants and weather data in the previous 5 h. According to our experiment results, the model generates a very good R2 score of 0.924 and 0.835 for O3 and CO, respectively. In addition, the paper proposes an ensemble model based on random forest (RF) and gradient boosting (GBoost) algorithms for forecasting hourly PM2.5 and PM10 using the air quality and weather data in the previous 5 h. Furthermore, the paper shares our research results for PM2.5 and PM10 prediction based on the proposed ensemble ML models using satellite remote sensing data. Daily PM2.5 and PM10 concentration maps in 2018 are created to display the regional air pollution density and severity. Finally, the paper reports Artificial Intelligence (AI) based research findings of measuring air pollution impact on asthma prevalence rate of local residents in the Salton Sea region. A stacked ensemble model based on support vector regression (SVR), elastic net regression (ENR), RF and GBoost is developed for asthma prediction with a good R2 score of 0.978.

Structural and thermal performance of sustainable interlocking compressed earth blocks masonry units made with produced water from oilfields

There is a growing interest in plausible reuse of wastewater and solid waste materials for compressed earth bricks (CEBs) production due to their sustainability benefits, affordability, and they are considered relatively ubiquitous raw materials. However, a study of the behavior of CEBs produced from soil and injected wastewater from oilfields has not been well documented in the literature. This study aimed at employing an experimental testing program to assess structural and thermal properties of masonry units, mainly prism’s compressive strength, masonry wall’s behavior, and thermal properties of CEBs rooms made with produced water and soil obtained from two oilfields in Oman: namely Marmoul and Nimr oilfields. It was found that prism strength decreases with increasing prism height, with Marmoul CEBs (2.4–3.9 MPa) showing slightly better performance compared to that Nimr (1.8–3.8 MPa). The masonry prism efficiency factor, which was estimated based on the ratio between the prism and block strength, was in the range of 52.3–59% for Marmoul CEBs, whereas for Nimr blocks, it ranged from 39.2% to 57.9%. The results of the masonry wall test showed that the wall reached an ultimate load of 386 kN at a deformation of 8.0 mm and the mode of failure was deformation of the wall due to overall buckling. The CEBs rooms have shown enhanced thermal performance compared to the reference room built with hollow concrete blocks. The CEBs rooms provided 1–7 h of time lags and achieved between 0.15 and 0.23 lower decrement factors than the reference room due to their high thermal mass and thermal resistance, respectively. While the CEBs under this study have shown good structural and thermal insulation potential as a sustainable building material, other factors, including indoor air quality emissions, acoustic properties, seismic resistance, and cost-benefit analysis, need to be considered in future studies.

How Nigeria Deals with Environmental Damages? An Environmental Legal Perspective

The paper carries out a review of the environmental problems associated with atmospheric pollution, air quality emissions and applicable control mechanisms in the detection and evaluation in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria in the light of global trends and best practices given the magnitude of gas flaring taking place in Nigeria’s Niger Delta daily. This is flowing from the findings that gas flaring continues to be a major health hazard to humanity, domestic and global environment. Also considered are the Challenges facing air quality and carbon management in Nigeria and the place of the ongoing National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) funded research on air quality and carbon management and the recent release of the twin regulations of: the Flare Gas (Prevention Of Waste And Pollution) Regulations, 2018 and the Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialization Programme (NGFCP) by the Federal Government Of Nigeria aimed at stopping gas flares in the year, 2020. The paper adopts an admixture of the historical, comparative, the law and development and empirical approaches in appropriate cases.

Value of the Ash Opacity on the Performance of Incinerator as a Result of System Variations

About 15% of the total population of Semarang City does not get any waste management service. The lack of the infrastructure for collecting and processing waste, transportation, and disposal of the waste in the unserved area is believed to be the causes of the problem. As a result, incineration becomes the solution chosen for some people. Unfortunately, incineration has adverse effects. The ash produced by the incineration contains pollutants. To reduce the ash, the pollutant control devices that can be applied to the incinerator are needed. It is also necessary to monitor air quality emissions to find out the ash opacity value of burning material. The modification into two variations was carried out to determine the performance of the incinerator. The first system variation uses the principle of spreading water on the ash produced by the incineration. While the second system variation uses the principle of passing the ash in the submerged water. The composition of the waste burned in the incinerator was 38.115% leaves, 3.458% branches, and 20.475% food scraps. The measurement of the opacity value is done at the inlet and outlet of the incinerator.

Road to zero or road to nowhere? Disrupting transport and energy in a zero carbon world

The phasing out of conventional fossil fuel road vehicles is one of a number of potentially disruptive transport and energy policies. The implied technical substitution alone may be too slow to contribute meaningfully to meeting ‘net zero’ carbon reduction targets. This paper uses established modelling techniques and prospective scenario analyses in a UK case study to investigate what the impacts might be if we were more ambitious, how much disruption is needed to meet climate goals, the role of lifestyle and social change, and the potential implications for key actors in transport energy systems. Existing policies may neither hit carbon reduction targets nor make the early gains needed for a Paris-compliant trajectory. Deeper and earlier reductions in carbon and air quality emissions can be achieved by more ambitious but largely non-disruptive change of a 2030 phase out that includes (plug-in) hybrids. The earlier phase outs combined with lower demand for mobility and car ownership would make significant contributions to an emissions pathway that is both Paris compliant and meets urban air quality goals. Some disruption for technology providers, business and government can be expected in the more ambitious cases. The paper concludes by discussing key policy implications and recommendations.

Level of Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC) in the context of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in Office Buildings

This paper is focused on the quality of the indoor environment in terms of Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC) in the office buildings. Working in the office is one of the most common occupations in developed countries of the world. Employees spend up to 25% of their time in the workplace each year. Obviously, the internal environment affects not only the health of workers but also their performance and productivity. Observe the long-term level of Total Volatile Organic Compounds in the context of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in a single cellular office is subjected within the presented study. IA-Quest (Indoor Air Quality Emission Simulation Tool) developed by the National Research Council is used for emission of VOCs from building surface materials and furnishings in time. The simulation and monitoring of TVOC concentration are carried out in two phases. In the first phase, only building materials such as walls, doors, floor, ceiling, window, etc. are considered. In the second phase, the basic furniture including the office table and chair, coffee table, 2 chairs and wardrobe are included in the calculation. TVOC concentration values in a furniture room are 10 - 15% higher than in a room without furniture.

A Reappraisal of the Environmental Problems of Atmospheric Pollution, Air Quality Emissions and Applicable Control Mechanisms in the Detection and Evaluation in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, Global Trends and Emerging Developments in the Light of

The paper carries out a review of the environmental problems associated with atmospheric pollution, air quality emissions and applicable control mechanisms in the detection and evaluation in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria in the light of global trends and best practices given the magnitude of gas flaring taking place in Nigeria’s Niger Delta daily. This is flowing from the findings that gas flaring continues to be a major health hazard to humanity, domestic and global environment. Also considered are the Challenges facing air quality and carbon management in Nigeria and the place of the ongoing National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) funded research on air quality and carbon management and the recent release of the twin regulations of: the Flare Gas (Prevention Of Waste And Pollution) Regulations, 2018 and the Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialization Programme (NGFCP) by the Federal Government Of Nigeria aimed at stopping gas flares in the year, 2020. The paper adopts an admixture of the historical, comparative, the law and development and empirical approaches in appropriate cases. Keywords: Reappraisal, Environmental Problems, Atmospheric Pollution, Nuisance, Air Quality Emissions, Applicable Control Mechanisms, Detection, Evaluation, Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, Global Trends, Emerging Developments, The Flare Gas (Prevention of Waste and Pollution) Regulations, 2018. DOI : 10.7176/JLPG/92-17 Publication date: December 31 st 2019

Big geospatial data analysis for Canada’s Air Pollutant Emissions Inventory (APEI): using google earth engine to estimate particulate matter from exposed mine disturbance areas

ABSTRACTParticulate Matter (PM) emissions originating from mine waste and mine tailings can be hazardous to human health, depending on the ore type and processes used to extract ore. Until now, only a single, simple estimate of the total area of mine waste area across all of Canada has been available for calculating air quality emissions from this source. This single estimate, based on manual satellite interpretation completed in 1977, was extrapolated to estimate mine areas for all years from 1990 to the present. These area estimates were used annually to calculate the particulate matter from mines for the Canadian Air Pollutant Emissions Inventory (APEI); however, there is high uncertainty in these measurements of mine area and therefore in emissions estimates. In order to increase certainty in emissions estimates, the exposed mine waste areas must be mapped for each year. Mapping mine waste over areas as large as the Canadian landmass requires enormous quantities of data and considerable computational power, which will be compounded when a time-series analysis is required. Therefore, in this study, we have employed Google Earth Engine (GEE) Javascript API to map exposed mine areas in four “benchmark” years (1990, 2000, 2010, and current year 2018) as part of the APEI. A random forest classifier was trained using two separate datasets (Landsat-5 year 2000; and a combination of Landsat-8, Sentinel-1, and Sentinel-2 for the year 2018). Transfer learning was then used to apply the year 2000 model to the year 1990 and 2010 Landsat-5 imagery, which produced classification results for the four “benchmark” years in our time series. This tool has enabled the monitoring of mine growth over a 30-year period and has confirmed that overall the area of mines is growing in Canada. Overall, Google Earth Engine proved to be an invaluable tool in mapping exposed mine waste areas and would be similarly useful for any organization with large-area monitoring mandates or those interested in time-series analysis of the Landsat archive.

Visual Exposure to Natural Environments Decreases Delay Discounting of Improved Air Quality.

Poor air quality contributes to nearly 7 million premature deaths annually and remains a major public health concern. In order to directly address the future of air quality and current emissions, some economists and policy makers have stressed adopting a “zero discount rate” (or lowest possible) to promote clean air quality now and in the future. A low discount rate is also associated with individual health behaviors (e.g., exercise and lower rate of substance abuse). But what influences the psychology of decision-making that is relevant to the discount rate of air quality and public health outcomes, and individual health? The present experiments evaluated differences in such decision-making (i.e., delay-discounting) in the context of improved air quality with visual exposure to natural vs. built environments. Results showed that individuals exposed to natural scenes discounted improved air quality less (i.e., made more future-oriented decisions, Experiment 1), and this may be related to expanded space perception (Experiment 2). These results are the first to suggest that delay discounting of air quality (or any environmental outcome), similar to money, is malleable, and can be influenced by exposure to natural relative to built environments. These findings have implications for influencing long-term, individual health, and environmentally relevant decision-making and improving individual and public health related outcomes such as air quality.

Material VOC Emissions and Indoor Air Quality Simulation

The contribution reports on a simulation study of indoor air quality in relation to different ventilation rates specified for 3 categories of the indoor environment according to EN 15 251. Indoor air quality and energy management are often at the opposite ends of the building management spectrum. The buildings are polluted by occupants of the building themselves. The indoor air quality can be expressed at the required level of ventilation or Carbon Dioxide (CO2) concentration. Actually, the indoor air quality is influenced by emission from building surface materials and furnishing, occupants and their activities. VOCs play an important role in the indoor air quality evaluation process. VOC emissions adversely affect both occupant comfort and health. Most of the health hazards associated with VOC emissions occur during the first few weeks of building use. The Indoor Air Quality Emission Simulation Tool developed by National Research Council is used for simulating the VOCs emission impact of selected materials based on the amount of materials used and the ventilation rates in a model room, in this case study. IA-Quest predicts the emission of VOCs from building surface materials and furnishings, helping to select low-emission materials and effective ventilation strategies. The results showed the benefit of removing the increased amount of TVOC generated in time of the unoccupied period. The differences in TVOC concentrations were not obvious between two higher ventilation conditions (2.00 and 1.40 l/s.m2). More significant difference was estimated between categories A, B and category C (0.80 l/s.m2).

Effectiveness of short-term air quality emission controls: a high-resolution model study of Beijing during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit period

Abstract. We explore the impacts of short-term emission controls on haze events in Beijing in October–November 2014 using high-resolution Weather Research and Forecasting model with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) simulations. The model reproduces surface temperature and relative humidity profiles over the period well and captures the observed variations in key atmospheric pollutants. We highlight the sensitivity of simulated pollutant levels to meteorological variables and model resolution and in particular to treatment of turbulent mixing in the planetary boundary layer. We note that simulating particle composition in the region remains a challenge, and we overpredict NH4 and NO3 at the expense of SO4. We find that the emission controls implemented for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit period made a relatively small contribution to improved air quality (20 %–26 %), highlighting the important role played by favourable meteorological conditions over this period. We demonstrate that the same controls applied under less favourable meteorological conditions would have been insufficient in reducing pollutant levels to meet the required standards. Continued application of these controls over the 6-week period considered would only have reduced the number of haze days when daily mean fine particulate matter exceeds 75 µg m−3 from 15 to 13 d (days). Our study highlights the limitations of current emission controls and the need for more stringent measures over a wider region during meteorologically stagnant weather.

Life cycle environmental impacts of natural gas drivetrains used in UK road freighting and impacts to UK emission targets

Using natural gas as a fuel in the road freight sector instead of diesel could cut greenhouse gas and air quality emissions but the switch alone is not enough to meet UK climate targets. A life cycle assessment (LCA) has been conducted comparing natural gas trucks to diesel, biodiesel, dimethyl ether and electric trucks on impacts to climate change, land use change, air quality, human health and resource depletion. This is the first LCA to consider a full suite of environmental impacts and is the first study to estimate what impact natural gas could have on reducing emissions form the UK freight sector. If LNG is used, climate change impacts could be up to 33% lower per km and up to 12% lower per kWh engine output. However, methane emissions will eliminate any benefits if they exceed 1.5–3.5% of throughput for typical fuel consumption. For non-climate impacts, natural gas exhibits lower emissions (11–66%) than diesel for all indicators. Thus, for natural gas climate benefits are modest. However, emissions of CO, methane and particulate matter are over air quality limits set for UK trucks. Of the other options, electric and biodiesel trucks perform best in climate change, but are the worst with respect to land use change (which could have significant impacts on overall climate change benefits), air quality, human toxicity and metals depletion indicators. Natural gas could help reduce the sector's emissions but deeper decarbonization options are required to meet 2030 climate targets, thus the window for beneficial utilisation is short.

Can Biofuels Help Provide Clean Propulsion for Shipping, Now and in the Future?

E4tech conducted an important study (in 2018) for the Dutch Biofuels Platform and the Port of Rotterdam, as part of the development of a roadmap for decarbonising shipping in the Netherlands. In particular, biofuels can provide large reductions in GHG and non-GHG emissions, with a range of solutions for decarbonisation in the short and longer term. They offer greater decarbonisation potential compared to fossil alternatives aimed at tackling air quality emissions (e.g. LNG). The biofuels analysed were hydro-treated vegetable oil (HVO – including from waste oils and fats), Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME), straight vegetable oil (SVO), ethanol (both conventional and advanced production processes), bio-methanol, bio-LNG, Fischer-Tropsch diesel (FT-diesel) and Upgraded Pyrolysis Oil (UPO). The study determined the most attractive biofuel options based on criteria such as GHG reduction potential, readiness of production, cost and compatibility with the current vessel fleet in each shipping sub-sector: deep-sea, short-sea and inland shipping. It also provided recommendation on coordinated interventions from the range of actors in shipping industry that can support the uptake of biofuels, overcoming a range of technical, economic and operational barriers to their use.