Grantee Research Project Results
2019 Progress 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 Period Covered by this Report: January 1, 2019 through December 31,2019
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 land use based policies to mitigate particulate matter levels, atmospheric deposition and associated impacts on water quality and sensitive ecosystems.
Progress Summary:
During this reporting period, work has focused on data analysis and manuscript preparation and revision associated with multiple topics of this project:
Evaluation of the impacts of rising agricultural NH3 emissions on future nitrogen deposition and ecosystem well-being. We conducted baseline and controlled simulations to evaluate the impact of Nr deposition on sensitive ecosystems in the future and quantified the contribution from rising agriculture NH3 emissions. The simulated deposition fields are further linked with SPARROW to evaluate the impact of change in Nr deposition to total Nr loads at watersheds level. Our results show that simultaneous control of NH3 and NOx emissions are required to reduce the nitrogen deposition level below the critical loads, especially in intensive agricultural areas.
High-resolution hybrid inversion of IASI ammonia columns to constrain U.S. NH3 emissions using CMAQ adjoint model. We performed inverse modeling to optimize NH3 emission estimates in national emission inventory 2011 using satellite observations and CMAQ adjoint model. The Robustness of our optimized emission estimates are examined by comparing simulated NH3 concentration and NH4+ deposition with independent ground observations. Our optimization results show that there is large bias in NH3 emission in April both in terms of total amount and spatial distribution. The optimized NH3 emission and NEI estimates are in good agreement in July and October.
Evaluation of the impacts of energy policy relaxation and climate change on future O3-pollution. We conducted sensitivity simulations to test the robustness of the impacts of energy policy relaxation and climate change on future O3 pollution under difference socioeconomic scenarios. Our sensitivity simulations show that the significant increase in the number of nonattainment counties in the United States due to energy policy 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.
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. PnET-BGC simulations were conducted to evaluate the responses of acid-sensitive and insensitive stream chemistry in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Adirondack region of New York in eastern US to the future climate change and emission controls. Model simulations suggest that 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.
Future Activities:
Continue to analyze data, prepare manuscripts, and present results at meetings
Journal Articles on this Report : 3 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 27 publications | 19 publications in selected types | All 19 journal articles |
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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) |
Exit Exit |
Supplemental Keywords:
Nr species, PM2.5, land use change, pollutants emissions, air and water qualityProgress 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.