Since April of this year, METEOSIM SL has been working on the development of a diagnostic system on air quality that serves to prepare air quality improvement plans, a forecasting system to anticipate eventual exceedances of limit values of the different atmospheric pollutants, and an emergency management system and tracking of pollution episodes for the COUNCIL OF AGRICULTURE, LIVESTOCK, FISHERIES AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT of the ANDALUSIAN GOVERNMENT.
As we mentioned in previous Posts, air pollution represents one of the most important health risks that currently exist (https://meteosim.com/cuales-las-ciudades-mas-contaminadas-del-mundo/), which has led to a growing concern for the air we breathe, both on the part of the public and on the part of the administrations that represent them. Measures such as low emission zones (https://meteosim.com/zonas-bajas-emisiones/), or short and medium-term action plans are tools available to the competent administrations to reduce the impact of pollution on the health of the population.
In this sense, modeling has become a fundamental and particularly relevant tool, since it allows:
- To evaluate the effectiveness of the measures before being adopted, allowing a cost-benefit analysis of them.
- To know the main sectors or areas of activity on which to act through source contribution analysis.
- To anticipate possible exceedances of the limit values by generating warnings to the population and especially recommendations to risk groups.
- To have a tool that allows knowing the impact of a possible injection of pollutants associated with industrial accidents.
To respond to this need, METEOSIM has developed three platforms for the COUNCIL OF AGRICULTURE, LIVESTOCK, FISHERIES AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT of the ANDALUSIAN GOVERNMENT.
- On the one hand, a platform called DMScloud (Dispersion Modeling System on the cloud) has been developed that allows the users of the COUNCIL to launch simulations using AERMOD models (https://www.epa.gov/scram/air-quality-dispersion-modeling-preferred-and-recommended-models#aermod) and CALPUFF (http://www.src.com/) for the preparation of air quality improvement plans, short-term action plans or any other specific study on a local basis.
- On the other hand, a platform called Meteosim Solution has been developed that allows the users of the COUNCIL to know the weather forecast, emissions, air quality and natural dust for the next 72 hours by coupling the WRF models (https://www.mmm.ucar.edu/weather-research-and-forecasting-model), AEMM (https://meteosim.com/el-modelo-de-emisiones/), CMAQ (https: // epa.gov/cmaq) and WRF-CHEM (https://www2.acom.ucar.edu/wrf-chem) respectively.
- Lastly, a platform called CTrackM (Chemical Track Modeling) has been developed that allows the COUNCIL’S users to analyze specific episodes related to emergencies in industrial plants (https://meteosim.com/gestion-riesgos-quimicos/) and analyze the possible sources of exceedance of limit values or odors by calculating trajectories and back trajectories by coupling the WRF and HYSPLIT models (https://www.ready.noaa.gov/HYSPLIT.php).
All the models have been configured to consider the characteristics of the Andalusian territory, and thanks to a complete and rigorous calibration and validation process, a very high level of reliability has been achieved. The predictive system, for example, works with very high resolution, reaching very detailed forecasts of up to 1km resolution in the case of meteorological prediction, and 250 meters in the case of air quality prediction.
The project has not only consisted of the development of modeling tools itself, but it has also had a complete training and knowledge transfer program, so that at the end of the first 12 months of the project, the COUNCIL will acquire all the necessary skills to use the different platforms, as well as to interpret the results they generate. During the project with 3 years of duration, maintenance and continuous improvement tasks are carried out in order that the results of all the simulations generated by the platforms are as reliable as possible.
All the information generated at a predictive level, the COUNCIL, in addition to being able to access it via the Meteosim Solution platform, can consult it via a public website and a mobile application created within this project.
