Title: A new bottom-up emissions estimation approach for aircraft sources in support of air quality modelling for community-scale assessments around airports

Authors: Saravanan Arunachalam; Brian Naess; Catherine Seppanen; Alejandro Valencia; Jo Ellen Brandmeyer; Akula Venkatram; Jeffrey Weil; Vlad Isakov; Timothy Barzyk

Addresses: Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC 27517, USA ' Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC 27517, USA ' Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC 27517, USA ' Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC 27517, USA ' Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC 27517, USA ' Bourns College of Engineering, University of California, Bourns Hall A343, Riverside, CA 92521, USA ' University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO80305, USA ' Office of Research and Development, National Exposure Research Laboratory, US Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711, USA ' Office of Research and Development, National Exposure Research Laboratory, US Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC 27711, USA

Abstract: Transportation infrastructure (including roadway traffic, ports, and airports) is critical to the nation's economy. With a growing economy, aircraft activity is expected to grow across the world. In the US, airport-related emissions, while generally small, are not an insignificant source of air pollution and related adverse health effects. However, currently there is a lack of tools that can easily be applied to study near-source pollution and explore the benefits of improvements to air quality and exposures. Screening-level air quality modelling is a useful tool for examining urban-scale air quality impacts of airport operations. Spatially-resolved aircraft emissions are needed for the screening-level modelling. In order to create spatially-resolved aircraft emissions, we developed a bottom-up emissions estimation methodology that includes data from a global chorded inventory dataset from the aviation environmental design tool (AEDT). The initial implementation of this method was performed for Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). This paper describes a new emissions estimation methodology for aircraft emissions in support of community-scale assessments of air quality around airports and presents an illustration of its application at the Los Angeles International Airport during the LAX 2011/2012 Air Quality Source Apportionment Study.

Keywords: air quality; exposure; airports; aircraft emissions; environmental pollution; aviation environmental design tool; AEDT; Los Angeles International; LAX.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEP.2019.101832

International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2019 Vol.65 No.1/2/3, pp.43 - 58

Received: 24 Jan 2018
Accepted: 29 Sep 2018
Published online: 28 Aug 2019 *

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