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Development of a Biomass Burning Emissions Inventory by Combining Satellite and Ground-based Information
Citation:
POULIOT, G., T. PACE, D. ROY, T. E. PIERCE, AND D. MOBLEY. Development of a Biomass Burning Emissions Inventory by Combining Satellite and Ground-based Information. Journal of Applied Remote Sensing. SPIE/International Society for Optical Engineering, Bellingham, WA, 2(1):021501, (2008).
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory's (NERL's) Atmospheric Modeling Division (AMD) conducts research in support of EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. AMD's research program is engaged in developing and evaluating predictive atmospheric models on all spatial and temporal scales for forecasting the Nation's air quality and for assessing changes in air quality and air pollutant exposures, as affected by changes in ecosystem management and regulatory decisions. AMD is responsible for providing a sound scientific and technical basis for regulatory policies based on air quality models to improve ambient air quality. The models developed by AMD are being used by EPA, NOAA, and the air pollution community in understanding and forecasting not only the magnitude of the air pollution problem, but also in developing emission control policies and regulations for air quality improvements.
Description:
A 2005 biomass burning (wildfire, prescribed, and agricultural) emission inventory has been developed for the contiguous United States using a newly developed simplified method of combining information from multiple sources for use in the US EPA’s national Emission Inventory (NEI). Our method blends the temporal and spatial resolution of the remote sensing with the ground based fire size estimate. This method is faster and considerably less expensive than the method used for the 2002 National Emission Inventory and is more accurate than methods used for 2001 ant prior years. In addition, the 2004 fire inventory is the first EPA inventory utilizing remote sensing information. A comparison with the 2002 inventory for wildfire, prescribed, and agricultural fires indicates a large year-to-year variability in wildfire emissions and less variation for prescribed and agricultural fires. Total PM2.5 emissions from wildfires, prescribed burning, and agricultural burning for the contiguous United States were estimated to be 109,000 short tons, 209,000 short tone, and 232,000 short tons, respectively, for 2005. Our total emission estimate for 2005 is 550,000 short tons. Our analysis shows that year-to-year spatial variability accounts for the substantial difference in the wildfire emission estimates.
