Attribution of Ozone Pollution Control Benefits to Individual Sources

Abstract

Adjoint sensitivity analysis of numerical models provides a platform for directly linking public health effects with air quality for evaluating emission control policies in a more straightforward manner. We link epidemiological and valuation statistics to the adjoint of CMAQ and calculate sensitivities of short-term mortality-related benefits in Canada, the U.S. and Europe to anthropogenic NOx and VOC emissions across two continental domains. Our results show significant spatial variability in impacts of NOx and VOC emissions reduction on short-term mortality. We estimate that sensitivities of mortality-related benefits to 10 % NOx emissions reductions in major cities reach monetary values in excess of $635K/day in Europe and $355K/day in North America. We find that when the cumulative effects of anthropogenic emissions on O3 and NO2 population exposure are considered, NOx emissions reductions generally yield higher mortality-related benefits than the same relative reductions in VOC emissions. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014.