Top-down vehicle emission inventory for spatial distribution and dispersion modeling of particulate matter

Willian Lemker Andreão; Marcelo Felix Alonso; Prashant Kumar; Janaina Antonino Pinto; Rizzieri Pedruzzi; Taciana Toledo de Almeida Albuquerque

doi:10.1007/s11356-020-08476-y

Top-down vehicle emission inventory for spatial distribution and dispersion modeling of particulate matter

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2020 Oct;27(29):35952-35970. doi: 10.1007/s11356-020-08476-y. Epub 2020 Mar 26.

Authors

Willian Lemker Andreão¹, Marcelo Felix Alonso², Prashant Kumar³, Janaina Antonino Pinto^{1

4}, Rizzieri Pedruzzi¹, Taciana Toledo de Almeida Albuquerque^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 31270-010, Brazil.
² Faculty of Meteorology, Federal University of Pelotas, Pelotas, 96001-970, Brazil.
³ Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, GU2 7XH, UK.
⁴ Institute of Integrated Engineering, Federal University of Itajubá, Itabira, 35903-087, Brazil.
⁵ Department of Sanitary and Environmental Engineering, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 31270-010, Brazil. taciana@desa.ufmg.br.
⁶ Post Graduation Program on Environmental Engineering (PPGEA), Federal University of Espírito Santo, Vitória, 29075-910, Brazil. taciana@desa.ufmg.br.

PMID: 32219651
DOI: 10.1007/s11356-020-08476-y

Abstract

Emission inventories are one of the most critical inputs for the successful modeling of air quality. The performance of the modeling results is directly affected by the quality of atmospheric emission inventories. Consequently, the development of representative inventories is always required. Due to the lack of regional inventories in Brazil, this study aimed to investigate the use of the particulate matter (PM) emission estimation from the Brazilian top-down vehicle emission inventory (VEI) of 2012 for air quality modeling. Here, we focus on road vehicles since they are usually responsible for significant emissions of PM in urban areas. The total Brazilian emission of PM (63,000 t year^-1) from vehicular sources was distributed into the urban areas of 5557 municipalities, with 1-km² grid spacing, considering two approaches: (i) population and (ii) fleet of each city. A comparison with some local inventories is discussed. The inventory was compiled in the PREP-CHEM-SRC processor tool. One-month modeling (August 2015) was performed with WRF-Chem for the four metropolitan areas of Brazilian Southeast: Belo Horizonte (MABH), Great Vitória (MAGV), Rio de Janeiro (MARJ), and São Paulo (MASP). In addition, modeling with the Emission Database for Global Atmospheric Research (EDGAR) inventory was carried out to compare the results. Overall, EDGAR inventory obtained higher PM emissions than the VEI segregated by population and fleet, which is expected owing to considerations of additional sources of emission (e.g., industrial and residential). This higher emission of EDGAR resulted in higher PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 concentrations, overestimating the observations in MASP, while the proposed inventory well represented the ambient concentrations, obtaining better statistics indices. For the other three metropolitan areas, both EDGAR and the VEI inventories obtained consistent results. Therefore, the present work endorses the fact that vehicles are responsible for the more substantial contribution to PM emissions in the studied urban areas. Furthermore, the use of VEI can be representative for modeling air quality in the future.

Keywords: Brazil; Emission; Fleet; Population; Vehicular inventory; WRF-Chem.

MeSH terms

Air Pollutants / analysis*
Air Pollution / analysis*
Brazil
Cities
Environmental Monitoring
Particulate Matter / analysis
Vehicle Emissions / analysis

Substances

Air Pollutants
Particulate Matter
Vehicle Emissions