Abstract
Currently, increased attention is being paid to the nation’s smog problem in major urban areas because of the lack of a sustained improvement in meeting and maintaining the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for ozone. The efficacy of various emission control policies at the urban and regional scale can be examined through the application of grid-based photochemical models (NAS, 1991). In this paper, we report on the use of the Regional Oxidant Model (ROM) in the eastern United States for two ozone conducive events in examining the response of ozone concentrations to NOx- and VOC- focussed emission control strategies. As expected, the results indicate that the predicted peak ozone levels decrease as emissions are reduced, but the amount of improvement in ozone concentration levels is strongly dependent upon the prevailing meteorological conditions. ROM simulations reveal that NOx-focussed controls are more effective in reducing the areal extent of the ozone exceedances than VOC- focussed controls. Further, the improvement in the peak ozone levels over urban areas from the base case for the VOC-focussed scenario is found to be comparable to that of the NOx-focussed scenario. However, the peak ozone in rural areas are found to respond more favorably to NOx- focussed controls rather than to VOC-focussed controls. These results demonstrate the need for region-wide NOx and urban-specific VOC control strategies to attain the ozone NAAQS throughout the eastern United States.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Gery, M. W., G. Z. Whitten, J. P. Kilius, and M. C. Dodge, (1989), “A photochemical kinetics mechanism for urban and regional scale computer modeling”, J. Geophys. Res., 94, 12925–12956.
Lamb, R. G., (1983), “A regional scale (1000 km) model of photochemical air pollution, Part I: Theoretical formulation”, EPA-600/3-83-035
NAS, (1991), “Rethinking the ozone problem in urban and regional air pollution”, National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 489 pp.
Sistla, G., N. Zhou, J. Y. Ku, S. T. Rao, R. Bornstein, F. Freedman, and P. Thunis, (1995), “Effect of uncertainties in meteorological inputs on the urban airshed model predictions and ozone control strategies”, Accepted for publication in Atmos. Env.
Young, J., M. Aissa, T. Boehm, (1989), “Development of the regional oxidant model version 2.1”, EPA-600/3-89-044
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1996 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rao, S.T., Sistla, G., Hao, W., John, K., Biswas, J. (1996). On the Assessment of Ozone Control Policies for the Northeastern United States. In: Gryning, SE., Schiermeier, F.A. (eds) Air Pollution Modeling and Its Application XI. NATO · Challenges of Modern Society, vol 21. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5841-5_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5841-5_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-7678-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-5841-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive