Remote Sensing for Air Quality Impact Assessment

Lead Research Organisation: University of York
Department Name: Stockholm Environment Institute

Abstract

Poor air quality is a threat to human health and ecosystems across many parts of the developed World (especially in Europe and North America) and is rapidly worsening in parts of the developing World (especially in Asia and parts of Africa). There is a large focus on understanding air pollution impacts on human health and how pollution concentrations (especially ozone and particulate matter or aerosol) contribute to premature deaths and increases in cardiovascular disease. However, air pollution also affects ecosystems, here impacts vary from effects on yield, biomass and biodiversity losses which can lead to reductions in crop and timber yields and changes in species composition of ecosystems. Impacts on vegetation biomass will also affect carbon sequestration (less carbon being held in living biomass leading to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere) which will enhance climate change. Air pollution has also been found to affect the control that plants have over gas exchange resulting in increased transpiration which can in turn alter stream flow and hydrology. Even though these effects threaten food security, natural resources & biodiversity and the regulation of supporting biophysical systems our understanding of air pollution effects on ecosystems is far less advanced compared to that for human health, especially when considered at the global scale.

This project seeks to redress that balance using novel approaches that will bring together state of the art advances in the interpretation of satellite data targeted towards helping evaluate global air quality models and improve their ability to make future predictions of air pollution impacts on ecosystems. The project will focus efforts by developing a data and modelling framework that provides a means of integrating different components (chemistry transport models, pollution impact models, satellite data of pollutant concentrations, land cover characteristics, surface monitoring data) that, when brought together, will advance our knowledge of air pollution impacts to vegetation. The project will target specific aspects of this integration to reduce key uncertainties in air pollution impact assessment and allow future advancements in both remote sensing and air quality disciplines to be more easily integrated in the future. These are i. incorporation of seasonal cycles of canopy architecture derived from satellite data into chemistry transport models; ii. use of satellite derived distributions of ozone, aerosol, photosynthetically active radiation and fluorescence to evaluate chemistry transport model outputs and; iii. inclusion of methods to simulate photosynthesis and fluorescence into chemistry transport models so that the combined action of aerosol and ozone on photosynthesis (and subsequent vegetation damage) can be more readily compared with satellite data observations.

Finally, the project will culminate in an end user workshop to raise awareness of these new developments and their potential application to the broader scientific community concerned with understanding the influence of air pollution on atmospheric and terrestrial biosphere exchange processes. The project will also benefit a range of stakeholders with interest in air quality including i. national government through contribution to improving national scale modelling of air pollution; ii. European bodies involved in the UNECEs Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution who require estimates of pollution concentration and associated impacts to human health and vegetation across Europe; and iii. organisations such as UNEP active at the global level tasked with developing policies that can most effectively mitigate the most damaging effects of air pollution. Finally, the project will also benefit the Earth System Modelling community who are currently developing methods to improve our understanding of the effect of air pollution on atmosphere-biosphere exchange.

Planned Impact

The following stakeholders and user groups will be likely to benefit from this research, for each a brief summary of how they will benefit is also provided.

At the national level the project will feed into the UK Defra (Air Quality Division) and DECC (via PI Emberson). The new satellite techniques developed to observe surface ozone concentrations and column aerosol concentrations above the UK and Europe will help in evaluation of the atmospheric chemistry models that Defra uses for conducting its air quality assessments.

At the European scale, the project team will work closely with the UNECE Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) and in particular, EMEP (the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme), the Vegetation and Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (HTAP) programmes, as well as the Working Group on Effects (via PI Emberson), this latter group will also provide links to the European Commission. EMEP are tasked with monitoring and modelling of air pollution and its impacts across Europe. EMEPs atmospheric chemistry modelling will benefit from the improvements to the descriptions of European land cover (i.e. the characterisation of Leaf Area Index) which is crucial for current air pollution deposition and impact estimates. The UNECE Vegetation Programme will benefit from the development of techniques to observe and simulate fluorescence. This group have been interested in understanding air pollution impacts to vegetation for almost 20 years. The potential to observe changes in a key product of photosynthesis and relate this to air pollution concentrations opens up an exciting new opportunity to observe plant stress over continua of space and time which have not been possible to date. The inclusion of the simulation of fluorescence in the modelling conducted within this project also provides an opportunity to relate this stress directly to pollutant loads and deposition. The HTAP programme is interested in how air pollution and its precursors circulate around the globe. This programme of work has again been extremely reliant on site-specific monitoring networks (of limited density in parts of the developing World) and global modelling efforts. Full global coverage of both ozone and aerosol pollution fields (both these pollutants are an important focus of HTAP) will provide additional and extremely important evaluation data for HTAP modelling efforts. This will benefits HTAPs attempts to understand the role that pollution sourced from 'foreign' regions will have on domestic impacts such as human health and reduced ecosystem productivity.

At this global scale, the project will also connect strongly with existing academic and institutional initiatives around the world focussing on collecting air pollution data from concentration and flux monitoring networks around the World such as those hosted by the World Meteorological Organisation (https://www.wmo.int/pages/index_en.html). The project will also connect with the UNEP air quality and climate change programmes, especially those involved in understanding the potential for reducing short-lived climate pollutants (ozone and aerosol) such as the Climate Clean Air Coalition (http://www.unep.org/ccac/). These programmes are currently developing National Action Plans for a number of countries around the globe to develop appropriate pollution emission reduction policies (suitable for the countries particular social, economic and political conditions). The development of methods to monitor pollutant concentrations using satellites will provide a real time means of assessing the effectiveness of the implementation of policies to curb air pollution emissions. The development of air quality modelling techniques will also help develop scenario modelling to understand the effectiveness of such policies in the near future (i.e. in the next 10 to 20 years).

Publications

10 25 50
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Zoogman P (2017) Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO). in Journal of quantitative spectroscopy & radiative transfer

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Pope R (2018) Widespread changes in UK air quality observed from space in Atmospheric Science Letters

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Emberson L (2018) Ozone effects on crops and consideration in crop models in European Journal of Agronomy

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Dentener F (2020) Lower air pollution during COVID-19 lock-down: improving models and methods estimating ozone impacts on crops. in Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences

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Clifton OE (2020) Dry Deposition of Ozone over Land: Processes, Measurement, and Modeling. in Reviews of geophysics (Washington, D.C. : 1985)

 
Description 1. There is an urgent need for improved dry deposition modelling in regional and global 'chemistry transport models'. This modelling assess the deposition of pollutants to vegetation which can act as a sink for these trace gases.
The current dry deposition modules of most regional and global chemistry transport models predominantly use an outdated algorithm developed by Wesely et al in 1989. This could be improved upon in a number of ways:- i. by improving the dry depositions ability to represent vegetation types from all global regions (not only North America and Europe); ii. by using methods based on photosynthesis to estimate stomatal conductance (gas exchange through the leaf pores) since this allows a more direct association with damage caused by the uptake of the pollutant and also has consistency with Earth System Models that are starting to incorporate details of atmospheric chemistry and how this impacts land surface; iii. the dry deposition component is important in determining the pollutant concentrations that remain in the atmosphere but little work has been performed recently to ensure this is modelled accurately at the global scale.

2. There is a large potential for remote sensing, and in particular satellite observation, to provide data (especially in data poor environments) to support the further development and evaluation of dry deposition modelling. In particular, remote sensing can help improve characterization of the timing and vigour of growing seasons around the globe which will be invaluable in achieving a credible global scale development of dry deposition modelling.

3. There is a large potential for a broad range of user communities (i.e. modellers of atmospheric chemistry; the pollution impact assessment community; modellers of land -surface exchange; Earth System Modellers and policy & decision makers), to continue to exchange ideas and knowledge to identify which remote sensing products can be most effectively used to answer questions about air pollutant deposition and impact.
Exploitation Route 1. Continued development of dry deposition models that make use of remote sensed data
2. Continued dialogue within the 'user' community to identify data sets and applications that will be of most to model developers and that can most effectively help to answer key policy questions
Sectors Aerospace

Defence and Marine

Agriculture

Food and Drink

Environment

Government

Democracy and Justice

 
Description Raising awareness of the impacts of air pollution on ecosystems and profiling the development of new methodologies and techniques (i.e. remote sensing) that can help to improve our understanding of impacts. This awareness raising work is ongoing and resulted in communication with other scientists and the World Meteorological Organisation to discuss how the methods developed in the project could help to develop data fusion and data modelling methods that would help the WMO 'Global Atmospheric Watch Programme'. We are also now working more closely with researchers from the remote sensing disciplines in Romania to understand wheat development across Europe and how this can most effectively be modeled to identify pollution sensitive crop growth periods during the growing season that occur after anthesis. We are also working with TOAR II to develop a web based ozone deposition and effects model that can provide users with flux based metrics for ozone damage assessment.
First Year Of Impact 2016
Sector Aerospace, Defence and Marine,Agriculture, Food and Drink,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Environment
Impact Types Policy & public services

 
Description Aerosol Radiance Assimilation Study
Amount € 49,000 (EUR)
Funding ID ESA Contract 4000120160/17/NL/LvH 
Organisation European Space Agency 
Sector Public
Country France
Start 03/2018 
End 09/2019
 
Description ESA CCI+ Phase I - New R&D on CCI ECVs - Ozone
Amount € 500,000 (EUR)
Organisation European Space Agency 
Sector Public
Country France
Start 03/2019 
End 03/2022
 
Description Global Challenge Research Fund - STFC External Innovations & 21st Century Challenges
Amount £324,000 (GBP)
Organisation Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2019 
End 03/2021
 
Description Pollution and Climate Smart Agriculture in China (PaCSAC)
Amount £229,683 (GBP)
Funding ID ST/V002481/1 
Organisation Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 09/2020 
End 03/2022
 
Description STFC Defra Fellowship
Amount £60,000 (GBP)
Organisation Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2017 
End 07/2018
 
Description STFC Proof of Concept
Amount £96,000 (GBP)
Funding ID POCF1718-07 
Organisation Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2018 
End 03/2019
 
Description STFC Proof of Concept - Satellite Data for Operational Applications
Amount £96,043 (GBP)
Funding ID POCF1718-07 
Organisation Science and Technologies Facilities Council (STFC) 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 01/2018 
End 03/2019
 
Title DO3SE Model 
Description The DO3SE model estimates pollutant deposition and impact to vegetation and can be applied both for particular sites or regionally/globally. The model was further developed as part of this research grant 
Type Of Material Computer model/algorithm 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact The DO3SE model is used to establish critical levels (Air Quality Guidelines) for vegetation (crops, forests and grasslands) across Europe within the UNECEs Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution Convention. 
URL https://www.sei.org/projects-and-tools/tools/do3se-deposition-ozone-stomatal-exchange/
 
Title TOMCAT/SLIMCAT 3D Model 
Description Detailed 3-D model of atmospheric chemistry and aerosols. The model was initially developed around 20 years ago, but multiple projects have led to further developing and testing of specific routines and parameterisations. 
Type Of Material Computer model/algorithm 
Provided To Others? Yes  
Impact Many peer-reviewed publications. See website. 
URL http://www.see.leeds.ac.uk/tomcat
 
Description Remote Sensing for Air Quality Impact Assessment 
Organisation University of Leeds
Department School of Earth and Environment
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Provision of satellite data produced by my team on atmospheric ozone, aerosol and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) for comparisons with the TOMCAT chemical transport model and provision of NASA satellite data on surface biophysical variables, in support of development on the modelling side to represent better at global scale the interactions between atmospheric composition and land surface biophysical properties. Satellite data on PAR in particular helped in development of a new TOMCAT module. Satellite data with improved sensitivity to ozone in the lower troposphere will enable more critical assessment of the model representation of surface deposition through plant uptake. An initial analysis of satellite data on solar induced fluorescence (SIF) and PAR was also performed by my team, pointing towards future analyses of relationships between these variables, fPAR and global primary production (GPP) which will be facilitated by planned satellite missions. My team hosted the workshop for this project at RAL attended by a number of UK and international scientists active in the fields of plant health and pollution, atmosphere-biosphere interaction in climate and earth observation from space.
Collaborator Contribution Prof. Lisa Emberson (U.York) led the project. U.York and U.Leeds collaborated closely in the linking of TOMCAT and DO3SE models, to utilise satellite data to better characterise land surface type in the model, to better represent ozone surface deposition and to represent PAR.
Impact This activity helped to stimulate further interaction between U.Leeds and RAL in the comparison of satellite and model ozone distributions and their scientific exploitation in NCEO. A further grant application from this consortium to STFC Newton China fund has also resulted, although this was not successful. An STFC Proof of Concept grant was awarded to consolidate our near-real time satellite data processing system and to interact with several commercial partners in the air quality sector on their requirements. Collaboration with ULeeds in NCEO has continued to exploit our group's satellite data in studies of pollution. A bid has been submitted to Defra led by ULeeds with ULeicester and RAL partners for a pilot-project to assess use of satellite data to help improve UK National Annual Emissions Inventories.
Start Year 2015
 
Description Remote Sensing for Air Quality Impact Assessment 
Organisation University of York
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution Provision of satellite data produced by my team on atmospheric ozone, aerosol and photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) for comparisons with the TOMCAT chemical transport model and provision of NASA satellite data on surface biophysical variables, in support of development on the modelling side to represent better at global scale the interactions between atmospheric composition and land surface biophysical properties. Satellite data on PAR in particular helped in development of a new TOMCAT module. Satellite data with improved sensitivity to ozone in the lower troposphere will enable more critical assessment of the model representation of surface deposition through plant uptake. An initial analysis of satellite data on solar induced fluorescence (SIF) and PAR was also performed by my team, pointing towards future analyses of relationships between these variables, fPAR and global primary production (GPP) which will be facilitated by planned satellite missions. My team hosted the workshop for this project at RAL attended by a number of UK and international scientists active in the fields of plant health and pollution, atmosphere-biosphere interaction in climate and earth observation from space.
Collaborator Contribution Prof. Lisa Emberson (U.York) led the project. U.York and U.Leeds collaborated closely in the linking of TOMCAT and DO3SE models, to utilise satellite data to better characterise land surface type in the model, to better represent ozone surface deposition and to represent PAR.
Impact This activity helped to stimulate further interaction between U.Leeds and RAL in the comparison of satellite and model ozone distributions and their scientific exploitation in NCEO. A further grant application from this consortium to STFC Newton China fund has also resulted, although this was not successful. An STFC Proof of Concept grant was awarded to consolidate our near-real time satellite data processing system and to interact with several commercial partners in the air quality sector on their requirements. Collaboration with ULeeds in NCEO has continued to exploit our group's satellite data in studies of pollution. A bid has been submitted to Defra led by ULeeds with ULeicester and RAL partners for a pilot-project to assess use of satellite data to help improve UK National Annual Emissions Inventories.
Start Year 2015
 
Description External relations event on 'Sustainable food production and air pollution' hosted at the Milan EXPO 2015 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This event was hosted by the EU Joint Research Centre (JRC) in conjunction with the UNECE Conventions on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) and was intended to raise awareness of the influence of air pollution on food supply at the EXPO event, held in 2015 in Milan with a focus on food and sustainability. The event bought together academic, agricultural industry and policy makers to discuss the issues and consider future management options that would benefit sustainability.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.eumonitor.eu/9353000/1/j9vvik7m1c3gyxp/vjtq5tfiduyq?ctx=vga2czkjmkzj&v=1&tab=1&start_tab1...
 
Description IGAC Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report and Chemistry-Climate Model Initiative 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Meetings with UK scientists (Imperial, Leeds, Reading) and with the international community were attended by Dr. Barry Latter, Dr. Georgina Miles and Dr. Richard Siddans in preparation for IGAC's Tropospheric Ozone Assessment Report and Chemistry-Climate Model Initiative to establish the relevance of our group's multi-year, height-resolved global ozone data sets produced through NERC-NCEO and ESA-funded activities.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015,2016,2017
 
Description NASA TEMPO mission Science Team 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Participation in the Science Team for NASA's TEMPO satellite mission enables specialist expertise in my group developed through NERC-NCEO and related R and D activities over several decades to be drawn upon in the context of this new opportunity to observe N.America on an hourly basis to monitor pollutants and emission sources. This in turn should benefit the Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission to do likewise over Europe.
These interactions are through Dr. Brian Kerridge, Dr. Richard Siddans and Dr. Barry Latter
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014,2015,2016,2017
 
Description Presentation at UNECE HTAP Workshop, Potsdam, Germany 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact 50 academics and policy makers attended this 'Hemispheric Transport of Air Pollution (HTAP)' Workshop. The presentation given by Lisa Emberson described how to use HTAP results (output from an ensemble of ~10 atmospheric chemistry models) to assess the effect of hemispherically transported air pollution on ecosystems around the World. This work will consider different pollution mitigation options (e.g. local/regional NOx emission reductions vs CH4 reductions that will have effect globally. The work is presented to senior members of the UNECE Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) and feeds into European emission reduction policy.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.htap.org/