Estimating air pollution concentrations using movesgenerated site-specific traffic emissions
Abstract
The research presented here attempts to estimate air pollution concentrations using MOVES and site-specific traffic emissions particularly those emissions surrounding three different air-monitoring stations. The objectives of this research include using MOVES capability to conduct project-level analyses, choosing impact zones to create emissions inventories. Emissions inventories provided by the MOVES model for impact zones within the El Paso county area were used to identify a relationship between air monitoring stations’ measured results and emission estimates from a project-level analysis. The research hopes to identify an optimum zone radius that can be used to compare MOVES estimates with air monitoring stations reported data. Air concentration estimations were found using a simple Fixed-Box Model. Modeled emissions were then compared to concentrations from air monitoring stations in El Paso. Air concentrations were found to vary greatly between measured concentrations and the predicted concentrations using MOVES and the Fixed-Box Model. While the correlation is stronger when comparing CO and NOx measured concentrations to observed concentrations, there still appears to be a great discrepancy between values. Measured PM10 and PM2.5 values at air monitoring stations were substantially greater than concentrations measured through MOVES and the box model. This suggests that PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations at these sites can be caused by factors other than and in addition to traffic emissions. Additionally, this research validated emission estimates from the impact zones using VMT estimates and comparison to emissions values obtained from previous studies.
Subject Area
Civil engineering|Environmental engineering
Recommended Citation
Chavez, Mayra Consuelo, "Estimating air pollution concentrations using movesgenerated site-specific traffic emissions" (2016). ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. AAI10124891.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI10124891