AAAR 34th Annual Conference
October 12 - October 16, 2015
Hyatt Regency
Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Abstract View
Assessment of Diurnal and Seasonal Variability in Near-Road Dispersion
Fatema Parvez, KRISTINA WAGSTROM, University of Connecticut
Abstract Number: 412 Working Group: Urban Aerosols
Abstract Near road emissions of different pollutants, adversely affect both human health and the environment. Vehicular emissions are one of the primary sources of air pollution in cities and lead to elevated morbidity and mortality rates in individuals living near roadways. The complex interactions between meteorology, traffic volume, road structures and regional air pollution makes assessment of human exposure to vehicular emissions difficult. In this study, we compare the temporal variation in the dispersion of near roadway particulate matter in an urban area.
We employ a steady state Gaussian plume dispersion model, R-LINE, to simulate near road concentrations in Hartford, CT. R-LINE simulates the dispersion from line sources by numerically integrating the point source emissions along multiple road configurations.
We explore the seasonal and diurnal variability of vehicular emission dispersion under a variety of meteorological conditions. Variation in meteorological parameters such as wind speed, wind direction, atmospheric stability can play an important role in roadway dispersion.
We estimate the monthly averaged pollutant concentration in different seasons and compare the impact of changes in meteorology and seasonal conditions on pollutant concentration. We also evaluate the diurnal variation of roadway dispersion. This approach leads to improved understanding of roadway pollution dispersion and how it varies with meteorology and different time periods.