Developing novel approaches for the use of satellite products in air quality impact assessment
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leeds
Department Name: School of Earth and Environment
Abstract
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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).
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).