scholarly journals Apportioning Smoke Impacts of 2018 Wildfires on Eastern Sierra Nevada Sites

Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 970 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Mueller ◽  
Leland Tarnay ◽  
Susan O’Neill ◽  
Sean Raffuse

The summer of 2018 saw intense smoke impacts on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in California, which have been anecdotally ascribed to the closest wildfire, the Lions Fire. We examined the role of the Lions Fire and four other, simultaneous large wildfires on smoke impacts across the Eastern Sierra. Our approach combined GOES-16 satellite data with fire activity, fuel loading, and fuel type, to allocate emissions diurnally per hour for each fire. To apportion smoke impacts at key monitoring sites, dispersion was modeled via the BlueSky framework, and daily averaged PM2.5 concentrations were estimated from 23 July to 29 August 2018. To estimate the relative impact of each contributing wildfire at six Eastern Sierra monitoring sites, we layered the multiple modeled impacts, calculated their proportion from each fire and at each site, and used that proportion to apportion smoke from each fire’s monitored impact. The combined smoke concentration due to multiple large, concurrent, but more distant fires was on many days substantially higher than the concentration attributable to the Lions Fire, which was much closer to the air quality monitoring sites. These daily apportionments provide an objective basis for understanding the extent to which local versus regional fire affected Eastern Sierra Nevada air quality. The results corroborate previous case studies showing that slower-growing fires, when and where managed for resource objectives, can create more transient and manageable air quality impacts relative to larger fires where such management strategies are not used or feasible.

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 1311-1330
Author(s):  
Janaina Mazutti ◽  
Luciana Londero Brandli ◽  
Amanda Lange Salvia ◽  
Bárbara Maria Fritzen Gomes ◽  
Luana Inês Damke ◽  
...  

Purpose Higher education institutions are widely known both for their promotion to education for sustainable development (ESD) and for their contribution as living labs to urban management strategies. As for strategies, smart and learning campuses have recently gained significant attention. This paper aims to report an air quality monitoring experience with focus on the smart and learning campus and discuss its implications for the university context with regard to ESD and sustainable development goal (SDG) integration. Design/methodology/approach The air quality monitoring was held at the main campus of University of Passo Fundo and focused on three pollutants directly related to vehicle emissions. The air quality index (AQI) was presented on a website, along with information regarding health problems caused by air pollution, main sources of emissions and strategies to reduce it. Findings The results showed how the decrease in air quality is related to the traffic emissions and the fact that exposing students to a smart and learning environment could teach them about sustainability education. Practical implications This case study demonstrated how monitoring air quality in a smart environment could highlight and communicate the impact of urban mobility on air quality and alerted to the need for more sustainable choices, including transports. Originality/value This paper contributes to the literature by showing the potential of a smart-learning campus integration and its contribution towards the ESD and the UN SDGs.


2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 63-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jarmila Rimbalová ◽  
Silvia Vilčeková ◽  
Adriana Eštoková

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