Grantee Research Project Results
2005 Progress Report: Modeling the Effects of Land Use and Technology Change on Future Air Quality in the Upper Midwestern United States
EPA Grant Number: R831840Title: Modeling the Effects of Land Use and Technology Change on Future Air Quality in the Upper Midwestern United States
Investigators: Stone, Brian J , Holloway, Tracey
Institution: University of Wisconsin - Madison
EPA Project Officer: Chung, Serena
Project Period: January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2007 (Extended to December 31, 2008)
Project Period Covered by this Report: January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2006
Project Amount: $678,685
RFA: Regional Development, Population Trend, and Technology Change Impacts on Future Air Pollution Emissions (2004) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Climate Change , Air
Objective:
The objective of this research project is to test the hypothesis that “smart growth” land use strategies can significantly improve regional air quality throughout the upper Midwestern United States over a period of 25 to 50 years. To investigate this question, we will develop a fully integrated land use, vehicle travel, and air quality modeling framework to: (1) estimate vehicle trips and miles of travel (VMT) as a function of changes in population density, employment rates, income, and vehicle ownership; (2) estimate mobile source emissions as a function of changing land use patterns (as reflected in VMT), hybrid vehicle technology dissemination, and regional climate; (3) model regional O3 and PM2.5 concentrations as a function of regional land use, hybrid technology, and energy production scenarios; and (4) account for the effects of continental and global scale pollutant transport on O3 and PM2.5 chemistry for the future target years of 2025 and 2050.
Progress Summary:
Seven project milestones have been reached in Year 1 of this project. These include: (1) estimation of total vehicle miles of travel at the census tract level for the project base year of 1995 throughout the six-state study region; (2) estimation of total vehicle emissions of CO, VOC, NOx, and PM2.5 at the census tract level for the base year of 1995; (3) projections of population, housing population, median household income, employment rates, and household vehicle ownership at the census tract level to the modeling years of 2025 and 2050; (4) projection of the community type classification, including the rural, town, second city, suburban, and urban classes, to the modeling years of 2025 and 2050; (5) development of a series of logit models to project the migration of census tracts from one community type to another in response to changing levels of population, median income, employment rates, and vehicle ownership; (6) configuration and testing of all inputs to Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ), with non-vehicle emissions inventories generated by SMOKE consistent with the 2001 Clean Air Interstate Rule inventory; and (7) completion of preliminary work testing the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model, attending the WRF training workshop, and configuring WRF for the study domain (until WRF meteorology is available, we will run CMAQ with 2002 MM5 data provided by LADCO at 36 km x 36 km resolution).
Although no project hypotheses have been tested in Year 1 of this project, the data milestones reached will support a number of analyses with practical implications for both the ongoing phases of the project and environmental policy in general. Most significant in this respect is the development of an inventory of vehicle miles of travel and vehicle emissions that can be compared with national inventories to assess the degree to which conventional methods of estimating travel and emissions comport with a travel survey-based methodology, as well as the success of these inventories in modeling resulting regional air quality. Conventional approaches to estimating VMT, for example, rely most directly on a sample of automated traffic counters found along large arterials throughout the country. Lacking sufficient sample representation of smaller roadways where, importantly, most of the growth in congestion is occurring, the accuracy of these national vehicle travel inventories is the subject of debate. The development of regional VMT and emissions estimates at the census tract level through household travel survey data will permit the success of these two inventory methods in explaining observed air quality trends to be evaluated for the first time, with potential implications for the inventory methods used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other air agencies in the future.
Future Activities:
Five major project tasks are planned for Year 2 of this project. These include: (1) model emissions of CO, VOC, NOx, and PM2.5 in the future years of 2025 and 2050 in response to the business as usual VMT projections; (2) project changes in population density, community type classification, and vehicle ownership in response to a set of “smart growth” regional development scenarios; (3) model VMT and vehicle emissions in response to the demographic projections developed in the smart growth scenario; (4) model regional ozone and fine particulate matter for the base year of 1995 and in response to the vehicle emissions developed through the business as usual scenario; and (5) build proficiency in running WRF, so that it may be applied to analyze changes in meteorological conditions associated with regional land use and climate changes. No changes in the major project milestones outlined in the project proposal are anticipated.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 25 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
air pollution effects, air quality, atmosphere, ecological risk assessment, ecology and ecosystems, environmental chemistry, environmental monitoring, urban and regional planning, climate change, mobile sources, emissions inventory modeling system, global climate change, air quality models, ambient air pollution, atmospheric pollutant loads, automotive emissions, automotive exhaust, climate variability, community structure, ecosystem models, engine exhaust, global warming, green house gas concentrations, human activities, infrastructure systems, mobile source emissions, modeling, modeling regional scale ozone, motor vehicle emissions, ozone, ozone concentrations, predicting ecological response, regional emissions model, traffic, traffic patterns,, RFA, Scientific Discipline, Air, Air Quality, Environmental Chemistry, climate change, Air Pollution Effects, mobile sources, Environmental Monitoring, Ecological Risk Assessment, Urban and Regional Planning, Atmosphere, engine exhaust, modeling regional scale ozone, traffic, ecosystem models, infrastructure systems, Emissions Inventory Modeling System, human activities, motor vehicle emissions, air quality models, automotive emissions, ozone, traffic patterns, automotive exhaust, green house gas concentrations, modeling, mobile source emissions, atmospheric pollutant loads, regional emissions model, tropospheric ozone, global warming, predicting ecological response, ambient air pollution, climate variability, community structure, Global Climate ChangeRelevant Websites:
http://www.coa.gatech.edu/~stone/Pluto.htm 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.