Long-term regional air quality modelling in support of health impact analyses

Abstract

This paper investigates the use of long-term regional scale meteorological and air quality simulations for tracking changes in air quality and for supporting public health assessments. For this purpose, year-round simulations with the MM5/CMAQ modelling system have been performed over the northeastern United States for 1988–2000. Emission inputs for the CMAQ simulations were prepared with the SMOKE processing system and were based on 1990 and 1996– 2000 inventories. During this period, significant reductions in anthropogenic emissions of VOC, NOx, and SO2 have occurred in the point source and mobile source sectors. Model evaluation results show that the modelling system performs better in capturing temporal than spatial patterns. Moreover, the modelling system captured the effects of SO2 emission reductions on SO4 concentrations in ambient air and rain water. Finally, examples are provided for how these CMAQ simulations could be used in combination with observations to study the link between air quality and public health.