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NATIONAL URBAN DATABASE AND ACCESS PORTAL TOOL (NUDAPT): FACILITATING ADVANCEMENTS IN URBAN METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATE MODELING WITH COMMUNITY-BASED URBAN DATABASES
Citation:
CHING, J. K., A. HANNA, D. WILLIAMS, AND S. BURIAN. NATIONAL URBAN DATABASE AND ACCESS PORTAL TOOL (NUDAPT): FACILITATING ADVANCEMENTS IN URBAN METEOROLOGY AND CLIMATE MODELING WITH COMMUNITY-BASED URBAN DATABASES. Presented at 5th Annual CMAS Models-3 User's Conference, Chapel Hill, NC, October 16 - 18, 2006.
Impact/Purpose:
The objective of this task is to improve EPA's ability to accurately predict the concentrations and deposition of air pollutants in the atmosphere that are known or suspected to cause cancer or other serious health effects to humans, or adverse environmental effects. It is an essential component of EPA's National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA), which seeks to identify and quantify the concentrations and sources of those hazardous air pollutants which are of greatest potential concern, in terms of contribution to population risk. It is a major contributor to NERL's Air Toxics Research Program.
"Air toxics" or "hazardous air pollutants" (HAPs) is a category that covers a large variety of chemicals, which range from relatively non reactive to extremely reactive; can exist in the gas, aqueous, and/or particle phases; display a large range of volatilities; experience varying deposition velocities, including in some cases revolatilization; and are emitted from a wide variety of sources at a large variety of different scales. In addition, concentrations of air toxics are needed by regulators for both short (days) as well as long (up to a year) time scales. These requirements challenge our current capabilities in air quality models far beyond the needs for other pollutants, such as ozone. The specific work being done under this task involves 1.) developing and testing chemical mechanisms which are appropriate for describing the chemistry of air toxics; 2.) incorporating these chemical and physical mechanisms into EPA's CMAQ modeling system and applying the model at a variety of scales; and 3.) developing the methods for using models to predict HAPs concentrations at subgrid or neighborhood scales; and 4.) using these tools to assess the magnitude and variability of concentrations to which urban populations are exposed.
Description:
We discuss the initial design and application of the National Urban Database and Access Portal Tool (NUDAPT). This new project is sponsored by the USEPA and involves collaborations and contributions from many groups from federal and state agencies, and from private and academic institutions. NUDAPT will produce gridded outputs of urban parameterizations capable of driving advanced urban meteorological and air quality models. NUDAPT takes advantage of advances in modeling and parameterizations to improve urban simulations given the availability of new high-resolution data of urban morphological features. Portal technology is being used to develop NUDAPT as a "Community"-based system. The NUDAPT portal will facilitate data retrievals and handling based on data federation concepts (data federation provides a method for integrating diverse data into an application). Houston will serve as the initial prototype, it can then serve to demonstrate the NUDAPT features, including scope of the data and processing methodologies for an eventual extensibility to all other cities. Houston is the fourth most populated area in the United States. The city has been the subject of various environmental studies that have created a rich source of corresponding data (e.g., oxidants, air toxics). Fundamental data used will include buildings data, land use families, energy usage, census data, SAR data, activity data, traffic information, and population data. The initial prototype will be feature advanced urban implementations of the MM5 as well as WRF.