Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Integrated Analysis of Land Use-Based Policies for Improving Air and Water Quality: A Focus on Agricultural Reactive Nitrogen and Wildland Fire Emissions as Climate, Land Use and Anthropogenic Emissions Change
EPA Grant Number: R835880Title: Integrated Analysis of Land Use-Based Policies for Improving Air and Water Quality: A Focus on Agricultural Reactive Nitrogen and Wildland Fire Emissions as Climate, Land Use and Anthropogenic Emissions Change
Investigators: Russell, Armistead G. , Burtraw, Dallas , Driscoll, Charles T. , Odman, Mehmet Talat , Shih, Jhih-Shyang , Smith, Richard
Institution: Georgia Institute of Technology , Resources for the Future , Syracuse University , United States Geological Survey
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2018 (Extended to December 31, 2020)
Project Amount: $789,820
RFA: Particulate Matter and Related Pollutants in a Changing World (2014) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Air Quality and Air Toxics , Air
Objective:
Land-use-related emission sources are playing an increasingly more prominent role in the formation of atmospheric particulate matter (PM). Those sources can also impact water quality and ecosystem structure and functioning through the deposition of Nr to sensitive environments. Land use-based policies can be an attractive approach to improve air quality with the co-benefit of decreasing Nr deposition and improving water quality. An integrated modeling framework is being developed to investigate a range of policies and measures to mitigate particulate matter levels, atmospheric deposition and associated impacts on water quality and sensitive ecosystems.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
High-resolution hybrid inversion of IASI ammonia columns to constrain U.S. NH3 emissions using CMAQ adjoint model. The optimized NH3 emission in April is 46% higher than the NEI estimates with large spatial differences. Model evaluation against independent ground observations including NH3 concentration, NH4+ wet deposition, and particulate NH4+ concentration all suggests the optimized NH3 emissions reduce model bias. Re-evaluation of PM2.5 concentration and Nr deposition with the optimized NH3 emissions shows the optimization can partly close the gap between simulated and observed PM2.5 concentration by reducing the bias in simulated NH4NO3. The Nr deposition in sensitive ecosystems might be underestimated by 40% due to the low bias in NH3 emission. The optimized NH3 emission and NEI estimates are in good agreement in July and October.
Multi-model projections of agricultural land NH3 emissions under future warming. Our multi-model projections consisting of 17 climate projections under two climate scenarios show a significant increase in agricultural land NH3 emissions. The emissions were projected to increase by 26% (20%–31% as the 95% confidential interval of the multi-projection mean) and 81% (69%–92%) due to climate change alone by 2100 under RCP4.5 and 8.5, respectively. The increase is mainly driven by the increasing temperature and would lead to loss of 10% of the total N applied to agricultural land under RCP8.5, with subsequently 540 Gg N loss of crop yields (expressed as N yield), 18% increase in the atmospheric burden of ammonia/ammonium, and 8% increase in reactive N deposition over sensitive regions. We find that a combination of adapting management practices to changing climates and deploying feasible mitigation measures would reduce the agricultural land NH3 emission by ~59% (1186 Gg/year), fully compensating for the negative impacts of warming-induced NH3 emission increase on the atmosphere and ecosystems.
Future projection of biogenic emissions. Long-term trends in biogenic VOC (BVOC) emissions are more pronounced under RCP8.5 (+19.0% between 2010 and 2050) than RCP4.5 (+13.0%). Decomposition analysis finds that the meteorological changes lead to an increase of 6.6 Tg·yr-1 in BVOC emissions under RCP8.5, which is 94% higher than the increase under RCP4.5, but the overall differences between RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 are reduced by introducing the CO2-inhibition of the leaf-isoprene metabolism and the LAI change that reflect the vegetation dynamics in response to climate change. Land cover changes can change the BVOC emissions by -9 – +15% on top of the original level, depending on what modeling approach is adopted for land cover projection, indicating the potential of modifying biogenic emissions via land-based policies.
The sensitivity of aerosol pH to NH3 emission change in the US will remain low in the future even if all anthropogenic SO2 emissions are removed in the future: Based on CMAQ simulation, we found that the anticipated increase of NH3 emission would only result in a slight increase in particle pH, with the national average of 0.02 and a maximum of 0.25 under different SO2 emission reduction scenarios. Most of the additional NH3 will remain in the gas phase because of its pH-mediated semi-volatility. As a result, PM2.5 levels only show a minimal change (<0.8%) due to NH3 emission change. A regression of TNHx (NH3+ NH4) concentration change between scenarios with current and future NH3 emission levels at different SO2 emission reduction level indicates that it always takes 10 times increase of TNHx concentration to increase the particle pH by one. However, in terms of chemical composition, ammonium nitrate will become the dominant aerosol species in the Midwest US when SO2 is further reduced in the future. This indicates that future changes in agriculture NH3 emissions will affect the air pollutant composition and the aerosol composition, but unlikely change the major pathway of aerosol formation and PM levels.
Evaluation of the impacts of rising agricultural NH3 emissions on future nitrogen deposition and ecosystem well-being. Agricultural NH3 emissions dominate a larger fraction of the CONUS land in 2050 than in 2010, leading to a transition from oxidized form Nr dominated in 2010 to reduced form Nr dominated pattern in 2050. A similar trend is found for the Class I sensitive regions. Comparison between the Nr deposition and the CL datasets indicates that emission changes from agricultural sources will increase the exceedance rates in 2050, alleviating the benefits from NOx emission controls. Most grids with exceedance have over 50% Nr from land-use related sources means they cannot achieve attainment in 2050 with an extension of current strategies of emission controls. Reducing the nitrogen deposition level below the critical loads requires simultaneous control of NH3 emissions from agriculture activities and NOx emissions from fossil fuel combustion. By linking Nr deposition with SPARROW, our study shows that several remote watersheds are most vulnerable to atmospheric Nr deposition increase caused by rising agricultural NH3 emissions in the future, including lakes in National Parks and National Wilderness areas.
The impacts of energy policy relaxation and climate change on O3 pollution stay robust under different socioeconomic scenarios. Our simulations find that energy policy relaxation and climate change together will increase the number of O3-standard nonattainment counties (NNA) by more than three-fourths in 2050. Climate change significantly magnifies the impact of energy policy (EP) relaxation on the increase in NNA. The magnification results from a domain-wide increase in O3 production efficiency during O3 episodes due to warming. Our sensitivity simulations show that the significant increase in NNA due to EP relaxation and climate change hold across different socioeconomic scenarios, and the synergistic effect between energy policy relaxation and climate change is more pronounced under RCP8.5, a climate scenario showing intense warming, than under RCP4.5, a climate scenario showing moderate warming.
Evaluation of the impacts of energy policies and population growth on future total nitrogen loading in nine US coastal regions. We estimated total nitrogen air depositions using CMAQ under Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule and an updated Clean Power Plan (CPP) rule. With air deposition data from CMAQ and population data from Census, we ran SPARROW to simulate total nitrogen loading in nine US coastal regions for 2020, 2030 and 2040 and compared the impact of each energy policy scenario to business as usual for each year. We decomposed the total impacts into energy and population components for nine US coastal regions. Our results indicate that the updated CPP rule is more effective than ACE rule, in terms of total nitrogen loading reductions, with tremendous spatial variations. Future population growth could offset loading reductions induced by energy policies.
Evaluation of stream chemistry under different future scenarios. The PnET-BGC simulations suggested that for the Adirondack region of New York (ADK), the stream concentration of SO42- in year 2050 decreased about 56% compared to year 2010 in response to 68% decreases in SO42- deposition, and the stream acid neutralizing capacity (ANC) increased about 41% during the same period, which may be also attributed to the decreases in SO42- and NO3- deposition. However, the simulation results for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSM) indicated that the stream concentration of SO42- increased about 24% in response to 72% decreases in SO42- deposition, and the stream ANC decreased 62% from year 2050 to 2010. These different responses of stream SO42- and stream ANC among sites can be attributed to the site characteristics, like elevation, vegetation type, soil SO42- absorption capacity, soil NO3- retention capacity, weathering rate of base cation and others. For the acid insensitive site in ADK, there is no significant difference in stream chemistry in response to the two future deposition scenarios (the baseline scenario and a counterfactual scenario with land-use-related sources held constant as in 2010). For acid sensitive site in the GSM, stream nitrite and sulfate show significant difference between the baseline and the counterfactual scenarios. For the acid acid-insensitive streams in ADK, the projected gain in ANC from emission control would be 8.4 µmol/L by the year 2050, whereas the projected loss in ANC from climate change would be 17.8 µmol/L; for the acid-sensitive steams in ADK, they would be 13.6 and 3.5 µmol/L, respectively.
Journal Articles on this Report : 19 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 27 publications | 19 publications in selected types | All 19 journal articles |
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Henneman L, Shen H, Hogrefe C, Russell A, Zigler C. Four Decades of Mobile Source Pollutants:Spatial-Temporal Trends Assessed by Ground-Based Monitors, Air Quality Models, and Satellites. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 2021;55(2):882-892. |
R835880 (Final) R835872 (2020) |
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Henneman LRF, Shen H, Liu C, Hu Y, Mulholland JA, Russell AG. Responses in ozone and its production efficiency attributable to recent and future emissions changes in the Eastern United States. Environmental Science & Technology 2017;51(23):13797-13805. |
R835880 (2016) R835880 (2017) R835880 (2018) R835880 (Final) |
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Lawal AS, Guan X, Liu C, Henneman LRF, Vasilakos P, Bhogineni V, Weber RJ, Nenes A, Russell AG. Linked response of aerosol acidity and ammonia to SO2 and NOX emissions reductions in the United States. Environmental Science & Technology 2018;52(17):9861-9873. |
R835880 (2017) R835880 (2018) R835880 (Final) R835882 (Final) |
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Peng X, Vasiliakos P, Nenes A, Shi G, Qian Y, Shi X, Xiao Z, Chen K, Feng Y, Russell A. Detailed Analysis of Estimated pH, Activity Coefficients, and Ion Concentrations between the Three Aerosol Thermodynamic Models. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 2019;53(15):8903-8913. |
R835880 (Final) |
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Shih J-S, Driscoll CT, Burtraw D, Shen H, Smith RA, Keyes A, Lambert KF, Chen Y, Russell AG. Energy policy and coastal water quality:An integrated energy, air and water quality modeling approach. Science of The Total Environment 2021:151593. |
R835880 (Final) |
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Zhang B, Shen H, Liu P, Guo H, Hu Y, Chen Y, Xie S, Xi Z, Skipper TN, Russell AG. Significant contrasts in aerosol acidity between China and the United States. Atmos Chem Phys 2021;21:8341–56 |
R835880 (Final) |
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Qian Y, Henneman LRF, Mulholland JA, Russell AG. Empirical development of ozone isopleths:Applications to Los Angeles. Environmental Science & Technology Letters 2019 |
R835880 (Final) |
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Chen Y, Shen H, Russell AG. Current and Future Responses of Aerosol pH and Composition in the US to Declining SO2 Emissions and Increasing NH3 Emissions. Environmental science & technology 2019;53(16):9646-55. |
R835880 (2019) R835880 (Final) |
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Shen H, Tao S, Chen Y, Odman MT, Zou Y, Huang Y, Chen H, Zhong Q, Zhang Y, Chen Y, Su S. Global Fire Forecasts Using Both Large‐Scale Climate Indices and Local Meteorological Parameters. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 2019;33(8):1129-45. |
R835880 (2019) R835880 (Final) |
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Shen H, Chen Y, Li Y, Russell AG, Hu Y, Henneman LR, Odman MT, Shih JS, Burtraw D, Shao S, Yu H. Relaxing energy policies coupled with climate change will significantly undermine efforts to attain us ozone standards. One Earth 2019;1(2):229-39. |
R835880 (2019) R835880 (Final) |
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Keyes AT, Lambert KF, Burtraw D, Buonocore JJ, Levy JI, Driscoll CT. The Affordable Clean Energy rule and the impact of emissions rebound on carbon dioxide and criteria air pollutant emissions. Environmental Research Letters 2019;14:044018 |
R835880 (Final) |
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Nenes A, Pandis SN, Weber RJ, Russell A. Aerosol pH and liquid water content determine when particulate matter is sensitive to ammonia and nitrate availability. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 2020;20:3249–58. |
R835880 (Final) |
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Chen Y, Shen H, Shih J-S, Russell AG, Shao S, Hu Y, Odman MT, Nenes A, Pavur GK, Zou Y, Chen Z, Smith RA, Burtraw D, Driscoll CT. Greater contribution from agricultural sources to future reactive nitrogen deposition in the United States. Earth’s Future 2020;8:e2019EF001453 |
R835880 (Final) |
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Shen H, Chen Y, Hu Y, Ran L, Lam SK, Pavur GK, Zhou F, Pleim JE, Russell AG. Intense warming will significantly increase cropland ammonia volatilization threatening food security and ecosystem health. One Earth 2020;3:126–34. |
R835880 (Final) |
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Henneman LRF, Shen H, Hogrefe C, Russell AG, Zigler CM. Four decades of United States mobile source pollutants:Spatial–temporal trends assessed by ground-based monitors, air quality models, and satellites. Environmental Science & Technology 2021;55:882–92 |
R835880 (Final) |
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Chen Y, Shen H, Kaiser J, Hu Y, Capps SL, Zhao S, Hakami A, Shih J-S, Pavur GK, Turner MD, Henze DK, Resler J, Nenes A, Napelenok SL, Bash JO, Fahey KM, et al. High-resolution hybrid inversion of IASI ammonia columns to constrain US ammonia emissions using the CMAQ adjoint model. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 2021;21:2067–82 |
R835880 (Final) |
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Shen H, Shen G, Chen Y, Russell AG, Hu Y, Duan X, Meng W, Xu Y, Yun X, Lyu B, Zhao S, Hakami A, Guo J, Tao S, Smith KR. Increased air pollution exposure among the Chinese population during the national quarantine in 2020. Nature Human Behaviour 2021;5:239–46. |
R835880 (Final) |
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Shen H, Liu B, Chen Y, Zhu X, Yun X, Meng W, Lu C, Shen G, Hu Y, Russell AG, Smith KR, Tao S. Individual and population level protection from particulate matter exposure by wearing facemasks. Environment International 2021;146:106026. |
R835880 (Final) |
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Shen H, Hou W, Zhu Y, Zheng S, Ainiwaer S, Shen G, Chen Y, Cheng H, Hu J, Wan Y, Tao S. Temporal and spatial variation of PM2.5 in indoor air monitored by low-cost sensors. Science of The Total Environment 2021;770:145304. |
R835880 (Final) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
Nr species, PM2.5, land use change, pollutants emissions, air and water qualityRelevant Websites:
LAMDA (λ): Laboratory for Atmospheric Modeling, Diagnostics and Analysis Exit
Carbon Standards Examined Exit
Progress 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.
Project Research Results
- 2019 Progress Report
- 2018 Progress Report
- 2017 Progress Report
- 2016 Progress Report
- Original Abstract
19 journal articles for this project