Grantee Research Project Results
2005 Progress Report: Development and Evaluation of a Methodology for Determining Air Pollution Emissions Relative to Geophysical and Societal Change
EPA Grant Number: R831449Title: Development and Evaluation of a Methodology for Determining Air Pollution Emissions Relative to Geophysical and Societal Change
Investigators: Williams, Allen , Wuebbles, Donald J. , Donaghy, Kieran P. , Hewings, Geoffrey
Current Investigators: Williams, Allen , Wuebbles, Donald J. , Ha, Soo Jung , Donaghy, Kieran P. , Bye, Beth , Hewings, Geoffrey , Pallathucheril, Varkki , Tao, Zhining
Institution: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: February 1, 2004 through January 31, 2007 (Extended to July 31, 2007)
Project Period Covered by this Report: February 1, 2005 through January 31, 2006
Project Amount: $749,999
RFA: Consequences of Global Change for Air Quality: Spatial Patterns in Air Pollution Emissions (2003) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Air Quality and Air Toxics , Climate Change , Air
Objective:
The overall objective of this research project is to develop an Emissions Inventory Modeling System (EIMS) that uses econometric models and emissions development tools to formulate future emissions inventories for different social and climate change scenarios in the format consistent with the National Emissions Inventory (NEI). We take into account changes in population, economy, policy and regulations, technology, transportation, energy usage, landscape and land use, and vegetation and land cover in the development of a future emissions inventory. Our approach for anthropogenic emissions is to formulate the emission projections for a given scenario into growth factors that can be used to project forward the NEI. Biogenic emissions are projected with a terrestrial land-use model in consideration of different climate change scenarios. Finally, a Decision Support System (DSS) is developed that allows users to obtain background information, explore data, analyze and evaluate alternative scenarios, and focus on and depict critical interdependent relationships. The development and application of the EIMS will make a major contribution to a key goal of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Global Change Research Program to quantify the emissions associated with, and resulting effects of, regional and global changes on air quality.
Progress Summary:
During Year 2 of the project, we:
- Improved the methodology to transform the SCC level (or process-based) emissions reported in NEI to economic sector level (based on Standard Industrial Classification code and later on North American Industry Classification System code) emissions required by the econometric model. Emissions from on-road transportation and household activities are handled separately using the vehicle miles traveled, population, and energy usage data.
- Investigated the National Emissions Trend data and the past social and economic activity data to establish the relationship between emission intensity (EMI) and time. This time-varying EMI is used in future emission inventory development.
- Completed the development of continuous-time regional econometric input-output model (REIM) for Chicago area; the similar model for the Midwest region is at the test stage.
- Developed scenarios of future emissions in Chicago area based on constant (at 1999 level) EMI and changing EMI, indicating the capability of our EIMs to formulate a wide range of scenarios.
- Compared our emissions scenarios with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projections and the one predicted using the Economic Growth Analysis System, an EPA emission projection model.
- Specified the input data for Argo-Issue-Based Information System (IBIS) model and conduct 1-year current (1995) and 1-year future (2050, A1Fi scenario) simulations. The preliminary model results show 1-year climate data may not be enough to simulate an appropriate vegetation response. Other climate data are solicited to do a more complete simulation.
Future Activities:
In the next project year, we will:
- Complete the procedure that generates a NEI-like future emissions inventory so that it can be directly input to the Sparse Matrix Operator Kernel Emissions model, an emission processing model.
- Continue to refine the continuous-time REIM to support emission prediction.
- Extend the REIM capability to the entire Midwest region.
- Run Argo-IBIS to project changes in land over and biogenic emissions over the Midwest region under different climate change scenarios, using National Centers for Environmental Prediction reanalysis data for the North American region as current climatology representation and the Parallel Climate Model as climatology for the 2050 simulation.
- Complete the development of DSS.
- Publish the results in peer-reviewed journal articles.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 7 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
global change, climate change, emission, emission intensity, stationary sources, mobile sources, biogenic sources, land-use change, energy usage, population, vehicle mileage traveled, technological change, policy and regulation, continuous-time model, regional econometric input-output model, regional climate model, air quality model, decision support system,, RFA, Scientific Discipline, Air, Ecosystem Protection/Environmental Exposure & Risk, climate change, Air Pollution Effects, Monitoring/Modeling, Environmental Monitoring, Atmospheric Sciences, Ecological Risk Assessment, anthropogenic stress, atmospheric dispersion models, environmental measurement, meteorology, Emissions Inventory Modeling System, climatic influence, emissions monitoring, future projections, global change, economic models, emissions inventory, climate models, greenhouse gases, societal changes, environmental stress, regional emissions model, ecological models, climate model, greenhouse gas, atmospheric models, land use, Global Climate Change, atmospheric chemistry, air quality, ambient air pollutionProgress 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.