The assessment of transboundary and regional air pollution due to particles

Book chapter, 2017

Elevated atmospheric particulate matter concentrations are associated with significant adverse health effects, affect ecosystems, influence visibility and cloud formation in the atmosphere and play an important role in climate change. Air quality modelling makes the connection between the design of effective mitigation strategies and knowledge of air pollutant sources. Transboundary and regional air quality models are one of the main scientific and policy tools used for the air quality assessment including particulate matter (PM). As sources outside cities often contribute significantly to local air pollution, many European cities will be unable to meet WHO guideline levels for air pollutants only by local action. Regional models resolve complex chemical processes of formation of secondary PM providing the possibility to identify the key mechanisms in their formation. Modelling results are primarily used to identify the contribution of the regional anthropogenic and natural emission sources of air pollution to the local levels, and to ensure high quality data for decision making that would jointly with the adequate measurements allow for the implementation of effective measures for air pollution reduction. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of transboundary and regional modelling of air pollution due to PM as well as the assessment of rural background PM measurements. Within this chapter regional model capabilities including input data (emissions, meteorology etc.) are discussed with focus on two widely applied atmospheric chemistry models EMEP and WRF/Chem as well as trajectory model Hysplit. Finally, the systematic review of some recent scientific papers focused on PM simulation and intercomparison of different models enabled the identification of unresolved scientific issues in regional PM simulations with atmospheric chemistry models.