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THE USE OF AIR QUALITY FORECASTS TO ASSESS IMPACTS OF AIR POLLUTION ON CROPS: METHODOLOGY AND CASE STUDY
Citation:
TONG, D., R. MATHUR, K. L. SCHERE, D. KANG, AND S. YU. THE USE OF AIR QUALITY FORECASTS TO ASSESS IMPACTS OF AIR POLLUTION ON CROPS: METHODOLOGY AND CASE STUDY. ATMOSPHERIC ENVIRONMENT. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 41(38):8772-8784, (2007).
Impact/Purpose:
The objectives of this task include: (1) to continuously evaluate and analyze the forecast results to provide diagnostic information on model performance and inadequacies to guide further evolution and refinements to the CMAQ model, and (2) extending the utility of the daily air quality forecast model data being produced by NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) as part of a NOAA/EPA collaboration in air quality forecasting, to EPA mission-oriented activities. These objectives include developing and maintaining a long-term database of air quality modeling results (ozone and PM2.5), performing periodic analysis and assessments using the data, and making the air quality database available and accessible to States, Regions, RPO's and others to use as input data for regional/local scale air quality modeling for policy/regulatory purposes.
Description:
It has been reported that ambient ozone (O3), either alone or in concurrence with acid rain precursors, accounts for up to 90% of U.S. crop losses resulting from exposure to all major air pollutants. Crop damage due to O3 exposure is of particular concern as ambient concentrations remain high in many major food producing regions. Assessing O3 damage to crops is challenging due to the difficulties in determining the reduction in crop yield that results from exposure to surface O3, for which monitors are limited and mostly deployed in non-rural areas. This work explores the potential benefits of using operational air quality forecast (AQF) data to estimate rural O3 exposure. Using the results from the first nationwide air quality forecast as a case study, we demonstrate how the O3 data provided by AQF can be combined with concurrent crop information to assess O3 damages to soybeans in the United States. We estimate that exposure to ambient O3 reduces the US soybean production by 10% in 2005.