Grantee Research Project Results
2017 Progress Report: Wildfires in the Rocky Mountains Region: Current and Future Impacts on PM2.5, Health, and Policy
EPA Grant Number: R835869Title: Wildfires in the Rocky Mountains Region: Current and Future Impacts on PM2.5, Health, and Policy
Investigators: Liu, Yang , Strickland, Matthew J , Chang, Howard , Fu, Joshua , Liu, Yongqiang
Institution: Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University , U.S. Forest Service , University of Nevada - Reno , University of Tennessee
Current Institution: Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University , University of Nevada - Reno , University of Tennessee , U.S. Forest Service
EPA Project Officer: Keating, Terry
Project Period: January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2018 (Extended to December 31, 2020)
Project Period Covered by this Report: January 1, 2017 through December 31,2017
Project Amount: $786,089
RFA: Particulate Matter and Related Pollutants in a Changing World (2014) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Air , Climate Change , Air Quality and Air Toxics
Objective:
In recent decades, the Western United States has seen heightened wildfire activity, characterized by a higher frequency of large wildfires a longer fire season, larger fire size, and a greater total area burned. With projected temperature increases, soil moisture reduction, and more frequent air stagnation, the burden of wildfires on air quality, public health, and environmental management will likely increase. With state-of-the-art global climate, regional climate, and air quality models; ground and satellite measurements; and detailed health information, we propose to investigate the impacts of historical and future wildfires on air quality, public health, and environmental management in the Rocky Mountains Region under various climate change scenarios and population growth patterns.
Progress Summary:
Using a hybrid downscaling approach, we evaluated the separate impact of climate change and emission control policies on O3 levels and associated excess mortality in the US in the 2050s under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). We show that, by the 2050s, under RCP4.5, increased O3 levels due to combined climate change and emission control policies, could contribute to an increase of approximately 50 premature deaths annually nationwide in the US. The biggest impact, however, is seen under RCP8.5, where rises in O3 concentrations are expected to result in over 2,200 additional premature deaths annually. The largest increases in O3 are seen in RCP8.5 in the Northeast, the Southeast, the Central, and the West regions of the US. Additionally, when O3 increases are examined by climate change and emissions contributions separately, the benefits of emissions mitigation efforts may significantly outweigh the effects of climate change mitigation policies on O3-related mortality. This work has been published in Environment International.
Epidemiological studies on wildfire PM2.5 are limited by the lack of accurate high-resolution PM2.5 exposure data over fire days. Satellite-based aerosol optical depth (AOD) data can provide additional information in ground PM2.5 concentrations and has been widely used in previous studies. However, the low background concentration, complex terrain and large wildfire sources add to the challenge of estimating PM2.5 concentrations in the western U.S. In this study, we applied a Bayesian ensemble model that combined information from the 1 km resolution AOD products derived from the Multi-angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) algorithm, CMAQ model simulations and ground measurements to predict daily PM2.5 concentrations over fire seasons (April to September) in Colorado for 2011−2014. Our model had a ten-fold cross validated R2 of 0.66 and root-mean-squared error of 2.00 μg/m3, outperformed the multi-stage model, especially on fire days. Elevated PM2.5 concentrations over large fire events were successfully captured. The modeling technique demonstrated in this study could support future short-term and long-term epidemiological studies of wildfire PM2.5. This work has been accepted by the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmosphere.
PI Yang Liu participated in the preparation of a commentary article led by Co-I Prof. Howard Chang on projection the health impacts of climate change in the US. This work was published in the journal Chance.
Future Activities:
In year 3 of our project, we will (1) complete the generation of downscaled air quality data during the fire season in the 2050s in the Western US, (2) complete the epidemiologic study to link smoke PM2.5 to ED visits and hospitalization in Colorado, (3) complete the estimation of the impacts of future wildfires and urban pollution on air quality, population health, and public health decision making in the Rocky Mountains Region.
Specifically, we will continue working on the boundary and initial conditions for CMAQ v5.2 for WUS case. Since the chemical species are different from previous CMAQ versions, we have been working on remapping the chemical species in order to run CMAQ v5.2 properly. Future RCP 8.5 emissions were obtained from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). As the future RCP 8.5 emission data is available every ten years, we will interpolate the emissions between 2050 and 2060 to calculate the annual emissions from 2051–2059. We are currently applying the temporal profiles from current 2011 NEI emissions to estimate the hourly emissions required by CMAQ.
We will conduct the future fire and no-fire CMAQ simulations using the IIASA’s RCP 8.5 emissions first. Once the fire emissions from the fire model by Dr. Yongqiang Liu are ready, we will replace IIASA’s fire emissions with Dr. Liu’s fire emissions. We will compare the three cases—RCP8.5 fire, RCP8.5 no fire, and RCP8.5 with Liu’s fire—to investigate the impacts of future wildfires on the air pollution and environment in WUS.
Journal Articles on this Report : 2 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 24 publications | 14 publications in selected types | All 14 journal articles |
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Type | Citation | ||
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Chang HH, Ebelt Sarnat S, Liu Y. Projecting health impacts of climate change:embracing an uncertain future. CHANCE 2017;30(4):55-61. |
R835869 (2017) |
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Stowell JD, Kim Y-m, Gao Y, Fu JS, Chang HH, Liu Y. 2017. The impact of climate change and emissions control on future ozone levels: implications for human health. Environment International 2017;108:41-50. |
R835869 (2017) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
Particulate Matter, PM2.5, Wildfires, CESM, WRF-CMAQ, dynamical downscalingProgress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.