Identifying the sources affecting the air quality in the Lower Rio Grande Valley area using CALPUFF

摘要

The air quality of the Lower Rio Grande in the US and Mexico border is affected by theindustrial, agricultural and commercial activities in the cities and colonies located on bothsides of the border. The chemical and mechanical processes that govern pollutantconcentrations in the atmosphere are complex and dependent on the quality of themeteorological input as well as the emissions inventories. To analyze the quality of air in theborder region between Texas and Mexico an atmospheric database was constructed for anarea covering 25 counties in Texas and 3 states in Mexico (Coahuila, Nuevo Leon andTamaulipas). Emissions of oxides of nitrogen (NO_x), volatile organic compounds (VOCs),carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO_2), particulate matter (PM_(2.5), and PM_(10)) from bothsides of the border are reported. CALPUFF a multi-layer, multi-species non-steady state puffdispersion model will be used as a tool to forecast the pollutant concentrations. The modelpredicted concentrations for the pollutants are attributed to point source emission; the surfaceobserved values from the continuous ambient monitoring stations in the domain has pollutantconcentration for all the type of sources, fractional contribution of point sources to the localair quality can be estimated by comparing two values. Impact of significant point sources canbe identified and prioritized. Implementation of the CALPUFF modeling system included useof the CALMET meteorological model, the CALPUFF dispersion model, and the CALPOSTpost processing program. In addition to these components, there are numerous otherprocessors that may be used to prepare geophysical (land use and terrain) data in manystandard formats and meteorological data (surface, upper air, precipitation, and buoy data).Execution of the CALMET meteorological model requires establishment of the modelingdomain, preprocessing and quality assuring meteorological and geophysical input data, and