Evaluation of atmospheric deposition of nitrogen to the Feitsui Reservoir in Taipei

2006 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
S.L. Lo ◽  
H.A. Chu

This research studied how the air pollutants of urban areas affect a neighboring reservoir and its water quality. Through the atmospheric dispersion process, air pollutants move from the Taipei metropolitan to the Feitsui reservoir and enter the water body through dry and wet depositions. ISCST3 (Industrial Source Complex Short Term Model), an air quality model, was used to simulate dispersion, dry deposition and wet deposition of the air pollutants. Then the nitrogen loadings to the Feitsui Reservoir were evaluated. The results indicate that wet deposition places a greater burden than dry deposition does on the water body. Wet and dry deposition of NH4+ together make up a rather large proportion of the total pollution. The ratio ranged from 21.9 to 25.2%. Those of nitrate make up a smaller proportion, ranged from 2.0 to 2.3%. If we take indirect deposition into account and calculate the NO3− and NH4+ together, the proportion is 15.9–17.6%.

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 1895-1906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebnem Aksoyoglu ◽  
Urs Baltensperger ◽  
André S. H. Prévôt

Abstract. Emissions from the marine transport sector are one of the least-regulated anthropogenic emission sources and contribute significantly to air pollution. Although strict limits were introduced recently for the maximum sulfur content in marine fuels in the SECAs (sulfur emission control areas) and in EU ports, sulfur emissions outside the SECAs and emissions of other components in all European maritime areas have continued to increase in the last two decades. We have used the air quality model CAMx (Comprehensive Air Quality Model with Extensions) with and without ship emissions for the year 2006 to determine the effects of international shipping on the annual as well as seasonal concentrations of ozone, primary and secondary components of PM2.5, and the dry and wet deposition of nitrogen and sulfur compounds in Europe. The largest changes in pollutant concentrations due to ship emissions were predicted for summer. Concentrations of particulate sulfate increased due to ship emissions in the Mediterranean (up to 60 %), the English Channel and the North Sea (30–35 %), while increases in particulate nitrate levels were found especially in the north, around the Benelux area (20 %), where there were high NH3 land-based emissions. Our model results showed that not only are the atmospheric concentrations of pollutants affected by ship emissions, but also depositions of nitrogen and sulfur compounds increase significantly along the shipping routes. NOx emissions from the ships, especially in the English Channel and the North Sea, cause a decrease in the dry deposition of reduced nitrogen at source regions by moving it from the gas phase to the particle phase which then contributes to an increase in the wet deposition at coastal areas with higher precipitation. In the western Mediterranean region, on the other hand, model results show an increase in the deposition of oxidized nitrogen (mostly HNO3) due to the ship traffic. Dry deposition of SO2 seems to be significant along the shipping routes, whereas sulfate wet deposition occurs mainly along the Scandinavian and Adriatic coasts. The results presented in this paper suggest that evolution of NOx emissions from ships and land-based NH3 emissions will play a significant role in future European air quality.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 168
Author(s):  
Kwandong D. Kim ◽  
Seungyeon Lee ◽  
Jae-Jin Kim ◽  
Sang-Hyun Lee ◽  
DaeGyun Lee ◽  
...  

We investigated the effects of wet deposition on secondary inorganic aerosols (SIAs) in urban areas by coupling the wet deposition module with the three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics atmospheric chemistry model (CFD-Chem). We developed a wet deposition model for the microscale model by improving on the global modeling initiative scheme. We evaluated the model by comparing it to the observed washout ratio from the total wet deposition. The simulated washout ratio calculated using the wet scavenging coefficient (WSC) based on the theoretical calculation is six times lower than that observed, suggesting that the wet deposition amount of SIAs from below-cloud scavenging might be underestimated. When we applied the WSC based on field measurements, the washout ratio was much improved; however, it was slightly overestimated compared to the observed rate. Therefore, we estimated the optimal WSC for SIAs in the urban area using a linear regression approach. We conducted a model using the wet deposition of SIAs in a megacity to understand the effects of wet deposition on the SIA concentration using estimated optimal WSCs. The simulated results indicate that washout processes decrease the surface aerosol concentration, showing that reductions in the average surface concentrations from washout processes were from 7.1% to 11.2%. The simulation results suggest that washout processes can reduce the particulate matter concentration in urban areas, indicating that washout processes should be considered in the microscale model, although the modeling domain can only simulate washout processes.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianlin Hu ◽  
Xun Li ◽  
Lin Huang ◽  
Qi Ying ◽  
Qiang Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract. Accurate exposure estimates are required for health effects analyses of severe air pollution in China. Chemical transport models (CTMs) are widely used tools to provide detailed information of spatial distribution, chemical composition, particle size fractions, and source origins of pollutants. The accuracy of CTMs' predictions in China is largely affected by the uncertainties of public available emission inventories. The Community Multi-scale Air Quality model (CMAQ) with meteorological inputs from the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF) were used in this study to simulate air quality in China in 2013. Four sets of simulations were conducted with four different anthropogenic emission inventories, including the Multi-resolution Emission Inventory for China (MEIC), the Emission Inventory for China by School of Environment at Tsinghua University (SOE), the Emissions Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR), and the Regional Emission inventory in Asia version 2 (REAS2). Model performance was evaluated against available observation data from 422 sites in 60 cities across China. Model predictions of O3 and PM2.5 with the four inventories generally meet the criteria of model performance, but difference exists in different pollutants and different regions among the inventories. Ensemble predictions were calculated by linearly combining the results from different inventories under the constraint that sum of the squared errors between the ensemble results and the observations from all the cities was minimized. The ensemble annual concentrations show improved agreement with observations in most cities. The mean fractional bias (MFB) and mean fractional errors (MFE) of the ensemble predicted annual PM2.5 at the 60 cities are −0.11 and 0.24, respectively, which are better than the MFB (−0.25–−0.16) and MFE (0.26–0.31) of individual simulations. The ensemble annual 1-hour peak O3 (O3-1 h) concentrations are also improved, with mean normalized bias (MNB) of 0.03 and mean normalized errors (MNE) of 0.14, compared to MNB of 0.06–0.19 and MNE of 0.16–0.22 of the individual predictions. The ensemble predictions agree better with observations with daily, monthly, and annual averaging times in all regions of China for both PM2.5 and O3-1 h. The study demonstrates that ensemble predictions by combining predictions from individual emission inventories can improve the accuracy of predicted temporal and spatial distributions of air pollutants. This study is the first ensemble model study in China using multiple emission inventories and the results are publicly available for future health effects studies.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Haglund ◽  
Björn Claremar ◽  
Anna Rutgersson

Abstract. The shipping sector contributes significantly to increasing emissions of air pollutants. In order to achieve sustainable shipping, primarily through new regulations and techniques, greater knowledge of dispersion and deposition of air pollutants is required. Regional model calculations of the dispersion and deposition of sulphur, nitrogen and particulate matter from the international maritime sector in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea have been made for the years 2009 to 2013. In some areas in the Baltic Sea region the contribution of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide from international shipping represented up to 80 % of the total near surface concentration of the pollutants. Contributions from shipping of PM2,5 and PM10 were calculated to a maximum of 21 % and 13 % respectively. The contribution of wet deposition of sulphur from shipping was maximum 29 % of the total wet deposition, and for dry deposition the contribution from shipping was maximum 84 %. The highest percentage contribution of wet deposition of nitrogen from shipping reached 28 % and for dry deposition 47 %. The highest concentrations and deposition of the pollutants in the study were found near large ports and shipping lanes. High concentrations were also found over larger areas at sea and over land where many people are exposed. With enhanced regulations for sulphur content in maritime fuel, the cleaning of exhausts through scrubbers has become a possible economic solution. Wet scrubbers meet the air quality criteria but their consequences for the marine environment are largely unknown. The resulting potential of future acidification in the Baltic Sea, both from atmospheric deposition and from open-loop scrubber water along the shipping lanes, based on different assumptions about sulphur content in fuel and scrubber usage has been assessed. Shipping is expected to increase globally and in the Baltic Sea region, deposition of sulphur due to shipping will depend on traffic density, emission regulations and technology choices for the emission controls. To evaluate future changes scenarios are developed considering the amount of scrubber technology used. The increase in deposition for the different scenarios differs slightly for the basins in the Baltic Sea. The proportion of ocean acidifying sulphur from ships increases when taking scrubber water into account and the major reason to increasing acidifying nitrogen from ships are due to increasing ship traffic. This study also generates a database of scenarios for atmospheric deposition and scrubber exhaust from the period 2011 to 2050.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (14) ◽  
pp. 10199-10218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta G. Vivanco ◽  
Mark R. Theobald ◽  
Héctor García-Gómez ◽  
Juan Luis Garrido ◽  
Marje Prank ◽  
...  

Abstract. The evaluation and intercomparison of air quality models is key to reducing model errors and uncertainty. The projects AQMEII3 and EURODELTA-Trends, in the framework of the Task Force on Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollutants and the Task Force on Measurements and Modelling, respectively (both task forces under the UNECE Convention on the Long Range Transport of Air Pollution, LTRAP), have brought together various regional air quality models to analyze their performance in terms of air concentrations and wet deposition, as well as to address other specific objectives.This paper jointly examines the results from both project communities by intercomparing and evaluating the deposition estimates of reduced and oxidized nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) in Europe simulated by 14 air quality model systems for the year 2010. An accurate estimate of deposition is key to an accurate simulation of atmospheric concentrations. In addition, deposition fluxes are increasingly being used to estimate ecological impacts. It is therefore important to know by how much model results differ and how well they agree with observed values, at least when comparison with observations is possible, such as in the case of wet deposition.This study reveals a large variability between the wet deposition estimates of the models, with some performing acceptably (according to previously defined criteria) and others underestimating wet deposition rates. For dry deposition, there are also considerable differences between the model estimates. An ensemble of the models with the best performance for N wet deposition was made and used to explore the implications of N deposition in the conservation of protected European habitats. Exceedances of empirical critical loads were calculated for the most common habitats at a resolution of 100  ×  100 m2 within the Natura 2000 network, and the habitats with the largest areas showing exceedances are determined.Moreover, simulations with reduced emissions in selected source areas indicated a fairly linear relationship between reductions in emissions and changes in the deposition rates of N and S. An approximate 20 % reduction in N and S deposition in Europe is found when emissions at a global scale are reduced by the same amount. European emissions are by far the main contributor to deposition in Europe, whereas the reduction in deposition due to a decrease in emissions in North America is very small and confined to the western part of the domain. Reductions in European emissions led to substantial decreases in the protected habitat areas with critical load exceedances (halving the exceeded area for certain habitats), whereas no change was found, on average, when reducing North American emissions in terms of average values per habitat.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 883-899 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. W. Appel ◽  
G. A. Pouliot ◽  
H. Simon ◽  
G. Sarwar ◽  
H. O. T. Pye ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model is a state-of-the-science air quality model that simulates the emission, transformation, transport, and fate of the many different air pollutant species that comprise particulate matter (PM), including dust (or soil). The CMAQ model version 5.0 (CMAQv5.0) has several enhancements over the previous version of the model for estimating the emission and transport of dust, including the ability to track the specific elemental constituents of dust and have the model-derived concentrations of those elements participate in chemistry. The latest version of the model also includes a parameterization to estimate emissions of dust due to wind action. The CMAQv5.0 modeling system was used to simulate the entire year 2006 for the continental United States, and the model estimates were evaluated against daily surface-based measurements from several air quality networks. The CMAQ modeling system overall did well replicating the observed soil concentrations in the western United States (mean bias generally around ±0.5 μg m−3); however, the model consistently overestimated the observed soil concentrations in the eastern United States (mean bias generally between 0.5–1.5 μg m−3), regardless of season. The performance of the individual trace metals was highly dependent on the network, species, and season, with relatively small biases for Fe, Al, Si, and Ti throughout the year at the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) sites, while Ca, K, and Mn were overestimated and Mg underestimated. For the urban Chemical Speciation Network (CSN) sites, Fe, Mg, and Mn, while overestimated, had comparatively better performance throughout the year than the other trace metals, which were consistently overestimated, including very large overestimations of Al (380%), Ti (370%) and Si (470%) in the fall. An underestimation of nighttime mixing in the urban areas appears to contribute to the overestimation of trace metals. Removing the anthropogenic fugitive dust (AFD) emissions and the effects of wind-blown dust (WBD) lowered the model soil concentrations. However, even with both AFD emissions and WBD effects removed, soil concentrations were still often overestimated, suggesting that there are other sources of errors in the modeling system that contribute to the overestimation of soil components. Efforts are underway to improve both the nighttime mixing in urban areas and the spatial and temporal distribution of dust-related emission sources in the emissions inventory.


2007 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 13077-13119 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. L. Steiner ◽  
R. C. Cohen ◽  
R. A. Harley ◽  
S. Tonse ◽  
A. H. Goldstein ◽  
...  

Abstract. Volatile organic compound (VOC) reactivity in central California is examined using a photochemical air quality model (the Community Multiscale Air Quality model; CMAQ) and ground-based measurements to evaluate the contribution of VOC to photochemical activity. We classify VOC into four categories: anthropogenic, biogenic, aldehyde, and other oxygenated VOC. Anthropogenic and biogenic VOC consist of primary emissions, while aldehydes and other oxygenated VOC include both primary anthropogenic emissions and secondary products from primary VOC oxidation. To evaluate the model treatment of VOC chemistry, we compare measured and modeled OH and VOC reactivities using the following metrics: 1) cumulative distribution functions of NOx concentration and VOC reactivity (ROH,VOC), 2) the relationship between ROH,VOC and NOx, 3) total OH reactivity (ROH,total) and speciated contributions, and 4) the relationship between speciated ROH,VOC and NOx. We find that the model predicts ROH,total to within 25–40% at three sites representing urban (Sacramento), suburban (Granite Bay) and rural (Blodgett Forest) chemistry. However in the urban area of Fresno, the model under predicts NOx and VOC emissions by a factor of 2–3. At all locations the model is consistent with observations of the relative contributions of total VOC. In urban areas, anthropogenic and biogenic ROH,VOC are predicted fairly well over a range of NOx conditions. In suburban and rural locations, anthropogenic and other oxygenated ROH,VOC relationships are reproduced, but measured biogenic and aldehyde ROH,VOC are often poorly characterized by measurements, making evaluation of the model with available data unreliable. In central California, 30–50% of the modeled urban VOC reactivity is due to aldehydes and other oxygenated species, and the total oxygenated ROH,VOC is nearly equivalent to anthropogenic VOC reactivity. In rural vegetated regions, biogenic and aldehyde reactivity dominates. This indicates that more attention needs to be paid to the accuracy of models and measurements of both primary emissions of oxygenated VOC and secondary production of oxygenates, especially formaldehyde and other aldehydes, and that a more comprehensive set of oxygenated VOC measurements is required to include all of the important contributions to atmospheric reactivity.


2013 ◽  
Vol 368 (1621) ◽  
pp. 20130124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin L. Dennis ◽  
Donna B. Schwede ◽  
Jesse O. Bash ◽  
Jon E. Pleim ◽  
John T. Walker ◽  
...  

Reactive nitrogen (N r ) is removed by surface fluxes (air–surface exchange) and wet deposition. The chemistry and physics of the atmosphere result in a complicated system in which competing chemical sources and sinks exist and impact that removal. Therefore, uncertainties are best examined with complete regional chemical transport models that simulate these feedbacks. We analysed several uncertainties in regional air quality model resistance analogue representations of air–surface exchange for unidirectional and bi-directional fluxes and their effect on the continental N r budget. Model sensitivity tests of key parameters in dry deposition formulations showed that uncertainty estimates of continental total nitrogen deposition are surprisingly small, 5 per cent or less, owing to feedbacks in the chemistry and rebalancing among removal pathways. The largest uncertainties (5%) occur with the change from a unidirectional to a bi-directional NH 3 formulation followed by uncertainties in bi-directional compensation points (1–4%) and unidirectional aerodynamic resistance (2%). Uncertainties have a greater effect at the local scale. Between unidirectional and bi-directional formulations, single grid cell changes can be up to 50 per cent, whereas 84 per cent of the cells have changes less than 30 per cent. For uncertainties within either formulation, single grid cell change can be up to 20 per cent, but for 90 per cent of the cells changes are less than 10 per cent.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kuo-Cheng Lo ◽  
Chung-Hsuang Hung

Due to the distinct geographical and meteorological conditions of Taiwan, air pollutants concentrations in the ambient air of it may vary with seasons. Accordingly, this study aimed to investigate the formation of high O3concentration in the ambient air of Southern Taiwan during summers. A high O3concentration case occurring between June 28 and July 2, 2013, was modeled and analyzed with WRF-Chem meteorological and air quality model. During the investigated period, a typical western Pacific subtropical high (WPSH) covered most East Asia, including Taiwan and its surrounding areas. The observations showed strong correlations between WPSH invasion and forming high O3concentrations. The dispersion of air pollutants in the ambient air is not sufficient to dilute their concentrations. In the afternoon of June 30, more than 60% of the air quality monitoring stations found O3concentrations exceeding 100 ppb, which were 2~3 times higher than their normal concentrations. Model simulation results verified that the presence of the WPSH hindered the dilution and transportation of air pollutants in ambient air. In addition, the air quality would be getting worse due to the leeward sides caused by the counter clockwise vertex formed in Southwestern Taiwan.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-344 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Wen ◽  
J. C. Lin ◽  
L. Zhang ◽  
R. Vet ◽  
M. D. Moran

Abstract. A new chemistry module that simulates atmospheric ammonia (NH3) and ammonium (NH+4) was incorporated into a backward-in-time stochastic Lagrangian air quality model (STILT-Chem) that was originally developed to simulate the concentrations of a variety of gas-phase species at receptors. STILT-Chem simulates the transport of air parcels backward in time using ensembles of fictitious particles with stochastic motions, while accounting for emissions, deposition and chemical transformation forward in time along trajectories identified by the backward-in-time simulations. The incorporation of the new chemistry module allows the model to simulate not only gaseous species, but also multi-phase species involving NH3 and NH+4. The model was applied to simulate concentrations of NH3 and particulate NH+4 at six sites in the Canadian province of Ontario for a six-month period in 2006. The model-predicted concentrations of NH3 and particulate NH+4 were compared with observations, which show broad agreement between simulated concentrations and observations. Since the model is based on back trajectories, the influence of each major process such as emission, deposition and chemical conversion on the concentration of a modeled species at a receptor can be determined for every upstream location at each time step. This makes it possible to quantitatively investigate the upstream processes affecting receptor concentrations. The modeled results suggest that the concentrations of NH3 at those sites were significantly and frequently affected by Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, southwestern Ontario and nearby areas. NH3 is mainly contributed by emission sources whereas particulate NH+4 is mainly contributed by the gas-to-aerosol chemical conversion of NH3. Dry deposition is the largest removal process for both NH3 and particulate NH+4. This study revealed the contrast between agricultural versus forest sites. Not only were emissions of NH3 higher, but removal mechanisms (especially chemical loss for NH3 and dry deposition for NH+4) were less efficient for agricultural sites. This combination explains the significantly higher concentrations of NH3 and particulate NH+4 observed at agricultural sites.


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