Part B: Operational Forecasting System to Evaluate the Impact of Industrial Sources on the Air Quality

A progressive interest has been found in the recent years on real-time simulations of air quality forecasting systems for environmental policy and management. The advances on air quality modeling have been substantial in the last decade. Nowadays, air quality modeling systems are capable to provide accurate information on the impact of different sources in relation to the total air pollution concentrations in real-time and forecasting mode. Large industrial emissions located in the surrounding areas of cities are a substantial and important part of air concentrations in the surrounding areas of the city and industrial plant. In this chapter we describe an operational forecast system used for impact of industrial sources on the air quality. The system has been implemented by using an emission model which includes anthropogenic and biogenic emissions. The system is tested in real-time and forecasting mode by implementing the “base case” on routine operational mode which includes emissions of the large industrial plants operating in an area. The system runs for specific domain architecture in ON/OFF mode (two simultaneous simulations) to extract the impact in time and space of the pollution emissions of a large industrial plant. The system is based on the TEAP (EUREKA) project, a tool to evaluate the air quality impact of industrial plants funded by EUREKA. The ON/OFF methodology helps to run the system over the different domain architecture with the anthropogenic and biogenic emissions from traffic, industrial, tertiary and domestic sectors including the targeted large industrial source (combined cycle power station, oil refinery, incinerator, etc.). This will be the ON mode. The OFF mode is exactly the same than the ON mode but switching off the emissions from the targeted large industrial source. The sensitive cases include the impact of disconnecting the emissions of each of the industrial plants completely and also other possible scenarios, as for example of disconnecting 50 % of the total emissions for each industrial plant. The results show that the modeling system is capable to determine the impact of the different emission scenarios in real-time and forecasting mode. The system can be used as an excellent tool for a possible future inmission trading EU Directive since the system identifies in time and space the percentage of inmission concentrations due to the industrial plant (or any other emission source). The system has been used in Spain as an advanced air pollution system for determination of industrial emission impacts (inmissions) of future or planed industrial or electric power plants.

Keywords: Air quality modeling, industrial emissions, TEAP (EUREKA) project, EU Directives, TEAP (Tool to Evaluate the Air quality impact of industrial Plants) tool, MM5 model, CMAQ model, WRF model, EMIMO model, Iberian Peninsula, Madrid, ozone, operational forecast, dioxin, furan, International Toxicity Equivalency Factor, CBM-IV chemical scheme, EMEP, O3, SO2, NOx, CO, PM10, PM25.