Ozone metrics for modeling demonstrations
Conference
·
OSTI ID:351040
- Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, Austin, TX (United States). Air Quality Planning Div.
In recent years, many states, including Texas, have used the Urban Airshed Model (UAM) to demonstrate that areas classified as nonattainment for ozone under the 1990 Federal Clean Air Act Amendments (FCAAA) will attain the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ozone by each area`s mandated attainment date. Until recently, attainment demonstrations were required to show that modeled attainment-year ozone concentrations do not exceed the NAAQS at any time or any location within the modeling domain; otherwise, the modeling would fail to constitute a demonstration of attainment. The attainment demonstration can be considered as a metric measuring progress toward attaining the NAAQS, but this metric has limited utility for gauging incremental improvements in air quality or for developing cost-effective control measures. More robust metrics of regional air quality are needed to compare proposed control strategies and to develop cost-effective approaches to reaching attainment. If it is not possible to demonstrate attainment of the NAAQS with the model, a more robust set of metrics could be used in a weight-of-evidence argument to demonstrate that reductions beyond a certain level would be impractical. In this paper, the authors consider three important aspects of air quality: temporal duration of exposure, geographical extent of exposure, and level of exposure. Individually, each aspect can provide a reasonable air quality metric. However, more robust metrics can be developed by combining two or all three aspects. This paper discusses a total of eight such metrics, and provides a three-dimensional graphical illustration of the interrelationship among these metrics. Finally, recent modeling conducted for Southeast Texas is used to illustrate how each metric responds to emission reductions and to show how these metrics could be utilized to compare the effectiveness of various control measures.
- OSTI ID:
- 351040
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-970677--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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