Modeling Tools for Air Pollution Analysis & Management

A number of tools have been developed to analyze air pollution and estimate costs and benefits of an array of management options. A number of institutions have developed many useful models to simulate various components of the air quality management (AQM) cycle. Ideally, it would be excellent for all cities/provinces/states/nations to develop a detailed knowledge base and have a working version of all the key appropriate models, but the tools have their advantages and disadvantages at handling the various components of AQM - from emissions to dispersion to impacts assessment. This post provides a summary of such tools available.

SIM-air: Simple Interactive Models for better Air quality (SIM-air) is, free to use, an excel based, multi-utility, integrated air quality management tool covering the aspects of emissions inventory to dispersion modeling to impacts assessment to optimization of management options across multiple pollutants in a co-benefits framework (health and GHGs). The family of tools are supported by a working paper series provided background notes of various modeling techniques and case studies across the world.
http://www.sim-air.org

RAINS & GAINS: The Regional Air Pollution Information and Simulation (RAINS) model for Asia and Europe, developed by IIASA, Austria, is an analytical tool to help decision-makers analyze future trends in energy & emissions, estimate regional impacts of resulting acid deposition levels PM pollution, GHG emissions, and to evaluate costs and effectiveness of alternative mitigation options.
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/rains/index.html

US EPA: A repository of over 50 air pollution models and training kits.
http://www.epa.gov/air/aqmportal/management/links/modeling_resources_tool.htm



MOBILE 6: Developed by US EPA to analyze emission factors for predicting gram per mile emissions of Hydrocarbons, Carbon Monoxide, Nitrogen Oxides, Carbon Dioxide, Particulate Matter, and toxics from cars, trucks, and motorcycles under various conditions. http://www.epa.gov/otaq/m6.htm 

BenMAP: The Environmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program (BenMAP), estimates health benefits of PM and ozone pollution.
http://www.epa.gov/air/benmap

HEAT: Harmonized Air Emissions Analysis Tool (HEAT) is developed by the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). HEAT aims at being a multi-national, multi-pollutant, Internet-based database for storing, tracking, and reporting GHG emissions and co-benefit information on NOx, SOx, CO, VOCs, and PM emissions, to provide optional tools to compute emissions from residential, commercial, industrial, transportation, waste buildings, streetlights, etc. and to be an unprecedented data repository on local government energy use, with hundreds of inventories and action plans.
http://heat.iclei.org/ICLEIHEAT/portal/main.jsp

 

APHEBA: Developed by Dr. Luis A. Cifuentes, from the Catholic University of Chile. This is an object-oriented model that quantifies the change in health effects and social benefits associated with a change in ambient pollutant concentrations.
http://www.luiscifuentes.cl

IDEAS: Informed Decision-support for Evaluating Alternative Strategies (IDEAS), developed under the DIESEL program in Bangkok, can be used to analyze and visualize the impacts of various options for pollution management. The primary tasks being pursued on IDEAS involve the development of an appropriate knowledge base and modeling tools relating to the analysis of pollution management options.
http://www.pcd.go.th/info_serv/en_air_diesel.html

IVE: The International Vehicle Emissions (IVE) Model is designed to estimate emissions from motor vehicles in developing countries to focus on control strategies and transportation planning that are the most effective. The model includes local air pollutants, greenhouse gas emissions, and toxic pollutants.
http://www.issrc.org/ive/register.html

COPERT 4: This methodology is part of the EMEP/CORINAIR Emission Inventory Guidebook. The Guidebook, developed by the UNECE Task Force on Emissions Inventories and Projections, is intended to support reporting under the UNECE Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution and the EU directive on national emission ceilings.
http://lat.eng.auth.gr/copert/

DSS/IPC: The Decision Support System for Integrated Pollution Control, developed by World Bank, helps the users to assess pollution sources in an area and organize in a systematic way to gather relevant information for to make an informed decision on control options.
http://go.worldbank.org/P5JGYPAWJ0
http://www.unescap.org/stat/envstat/stwes-mo2-air4.pdf

ADMS: The Atmospheric Dispersion Modeling System (ADMS) is an advanced model for calculating concentrations of pollutants emitted both continuously from point, line, volume and area sources, and discretely from point sources. The model includes algorithms which take account of the following: effects of main site building; complex terrain; wet deposition, gravitational settling and dry deposition; short term fluctuations in concentration; chemical reactions; and meteorological conditions
http://www.cerc-uk.demon.co.uk/nophrame/models/adms/admstech.htm

MARKAL: MARKet Allocation model (MARKAL) was developed in a cooperative multinational project over a period of almost two decades by the International Energy Agency. MARKAL is a comprehensive energy/economic model that simulates a nation, region, or state's energy system by representing the technologies and demands for energy services addressing environmental challenges, including acid rain and climate change. Briefly, the model finds the least-cost way to meet a given set of demands for energy services (such as building heating and cooling, or transportation).
http://www.etsap.org/markal/main.html

TAPM: The Air Pollution Model (TAPM) is a software package developed by CSIRO to estimate and analyze spread of air pollution in diagnostic mode.
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/research/tapm/

HYSPLIT: Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) model, developed by NOAA, is the newest version of a complete system for computing simple air parcel trajectories to complex dispersion and deposition simulations.
http://www.arl.noaa.gov/HYSPLIT_info.php

SEI Emissions Workbook: This emissions workbook, co-funded by BOC foundation, U.S. EPA & Sida (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency), summarizes the results of a study comparing existing international emissions inventory approaches.
http://www.sei.se/gapforum/project-details.php#1
Manual is here.

TREMOVE: This is a policy assessment model, designed to study the effects of different transport and environment policies on the emissions of the transport sector. The model estimates for policies as road pricing, public transport pricing, emission standards, subsidies for cleaner cars etc., the transport demand, modal shifts, vehicle stock renewal and scrappage decisions as well as the emissions of air pollutants and the welfare level.
http://www.tremove.org

WRF: The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model is a next-generation mesocale numerical weather prediction system designed to serve both operational forecasting and atmospheric research needs. It features multiple dynamical cores, a 3-dimensional variational data assimilation system, and a software architecture allowing for computational parallelism and system extensibility. WRF is suitable for a broad spectrum of applications across scales ranging from meters to thousands of kilometers.
http://wrf-model.org/index.php

ATMoS: The Atmospheric Transport Modeling System (ATMoS) is a lagrangian puff transport model, utilized for regional and urban scale modeling of PM (including secondary from SO2 and NOx). The model and supporting material @ ATMoS