AAAR 32nd Annual Conference
September 30 - October 4, 2013
Oregon Convention Center
Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Harmonization of Source Apportionment with Receptor Models in Europe
CLAUDIO A. BELIS, Philip K. Hopke, European Commission - Joint Research Centre
Abstract Number: 348 Working Group: Source Apportionment
Abstract In Europe, there is a need for harmonization of the receptor model techniques aiming at: a) making the results of the different studies comparable, b) expressing the reliability of the results quantitatively, and c) establishing when a methodology is appropriate for a specific purpose.
In 2010, an initiative for the harmonization of receptor models in Europe was launched consisting in three main activities: a) accomplishing a review and meta-analysis of source apportionment studies , b) organizing European-wide intercomparsion exercises, and c) drafting a European common technical protocol.
The review, conducted on more than one hundred publications including more than 330 records, identified CMB and PMF as the most commonly used tools and reported 6 main source categories for particulate matter mass and 3 for the particulate organic carbon. The geographical and seasonal variation of these sources were mapped and discussed.
Two intercomparison exercises were carried out by comparing the source contribution estimations by 25 independent research groups from 15 countries using the same or different receptor models on the same dataset. The main outcomes of the exercises are a general agreement between the performances of the different participants and models and good expert skills in dealing with complex real-world data and synthetic data.
The third pillar of the initiative is the common technical protocol prepared by leading scientists in the field. The document, targeted mainly to practitioners but also to air quality experts and policy makers, is organized following a logical sequence of steps to be carried out in a source apportionment study, with different levels of complexity according to the reader skills. The protocol focus on the most commonly used tools, nevertheless, there is a section on advanced methods which use is likely to increase in the near future.