AAAR 32nd Annual Conference
September 30 - October 4, 2013
Oregon Convention Center
Portland, Oregon, USA
Abstract View
Estimating Population Exposure to Fine Particulate Matter (PM2.5) during Extreme Air Pollution Events in the Pacific Northwest
ABDULLAH MAHMUD, Kelley C. Barsanti, Portland State University
Abstract Number: 584 Working Group: Aerosol Exposure
Abstract Particulate matter with diameter less than 2.5 µm (PM2.5) is known to cause adverse health effects, particularly among susceptible population groups including children and elderly. EPA (2008) estimated that approximately 158 million people in the United States live in regions where the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for PM2.5 is violated. The objective of the current study is to estimate population exposure to PM2.5 during extreme air pollution events in the Pacific Northwest. In this study, air quality model data will be obtained from the Air Information Report for Public Access and Community Tracking version 3 (AIRPACT-3) (http://lar.wsu.edu/airpact/index.html) data warehouse. AIRPACT-3 is a regional air quality forecasting system that generates daily total PM2.5 mass concentrations for the Pacific Northwest, namely for Washington, Idaho and Oregon. The modeling system is based on the WRF-CMAQ modeling pair, and has a spatial resolution of 12-km bounded by a 95 x 95 x 21 (XYZ) modeling domain. Daily average PM2.5 for the 2008-2012 period will be obtained and analyzed for identification of extreme pollution events. The extreme events will be categorized based on the 99th percentile value of the domain-wide daily average PM2.5 mass concentrations for the entire 2008-2012 period. Population exposure will be calculated for only those days with 99th percentile and above the domain-wide PM2.5 daily average concentrations using the EPA’s Environmental Benefits Mapping and Analysis Program (BenMAP) modeling software. The base-case BenMAP runs will generate spatial distributions of source apportioned PM2.5 exposure throughout the entire modeling domain. These results will then be utilized to build ‘what-if’ scenarios to understand the effects of emissions from various sources on population exposure during extreme pollution events in the Pacific Northwest.
Keyword: population exposure, fine particulate matter, extreme air quality events, Pacific Northwest