Emission estimates for assessing visual air quality

Abstract

An emissions inventory has been developed to support the visibility modeling and emission management evaluation activities that are currently underway to produce the information needed by the Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission. Meeting the emissions inventory requirements for the Commission started with merging U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 1990 Interim Inventory with point source data from EPA’s AIRS database. A number of improvements were also made to the inventory to account for key missing source categories and compounds. The source categories represented in the inventory include anthropogenic point, area, and mobile sources; biogenics; forest fires, forest management, and other waste burning; and fugitive sources, such as entrained road dust and windblown dust. The emissions database contains eight inventoried compounds: SO2, VOC, NOx, NH3, PM2.5, CO, and organic and elemental carbon particulate. The inventory has a 1990 base year with annual average emission estimates and average weekday estimates for each season of the year. Tabular summaries of the emission results are presented. The magnitude of the dominant emission sources is discussed by compound. © 1997 Air & Waste Management Association.