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A novel modelling-based method for air quality zoning. Application to the madrid region
Publicated to:20th International Conference On Harmonisation Within Atmospheric Dispersion Modelling For Regulatory Purposes, Harmo 2020. - 2020-01-01 (), DOI:
Authors: Borge R; Jung D; Lejarraga I; Crespo E; Vargas R; de la Paz D; Cordero JM; Gallego JS
Affiliations
Abstract
According to the European Air Quality Directive (AQD) (2008/50/EU), Member States should establish and periodically review zones and agglomerations to control and manage air quality throughout their territory. Madrid currently considers seven zones of air quality based on administrative, geographic and land use criteria. This zoning was proposed in 2014 and needs to be reviewed according to the AQD. However, there is a lack of standardized methodologies based on scientific criteria to define the new zoning. In this study, we developed and applied a new methodology based on mesoscale air quality modeling and statistical cluster analysis. We rely on a CMAQ 5.0.2 with 1 km2 resolution air quality simulation over the whole Madrid region for the year 2015. From the 1-hour resolution model outputs, we computed all the relevant indicators for NO2, PM2.5, PM10 and O3 as defined in the Directive 2008/50/EU. Representative statistics (mean, median, quartiles, etc) were calculated from the individual values of the grid cells overlapped for each of the 179 municipalities in the region. Then, the most informative parameters were selected as classification variables according to the result of a Principal Components Analysis (PCA). Subsequently, a k-means clustering algorithm was applied to identify municipalities with similar air quality features that could be homogeneous zones. The number of zones (or clusters) was defined through a series of tests that inform of the distribution of variance within and between clusters and the statistical significance of the differences found for each of the legal AQ indicators. The efficiency of the zoning is done by analyzing WCSS (Within Cluster Sum of Squares) in comparison to the total Sum of Squares. Besides, it is important to check the spatial continuity of municipalities within a cluster and the distribution of air quality monitoring stations (47 in the region) among them. Following this methodology, we compared two alternative zonings to the current one: i) an optimal zoning from the statistical point of view and ii) one under consideration by the Madrid Greater Region air quality service.
Keywords
Quality index
Leadership analysis of institutional authors
There is a significant leadership presence as some of the institution’s authors appear as the first or last signer, detailed as follows: First Author (BORGE GARCIA, RAFAEL) .