Introduction
According to Article 6, Paragraphs 2 and 3 of the Air Pollution Control Act, those newly added or modified stationary pollution sources within Class 2 and Class 3 of air pollution prevention regions in which air pollutant emissions quantities reach a certain regulatory scale is required to perform air quality simulation by suitable air quality model and verify the influence will not exceed allowable increment limits of air pollutant concentrations. As Article 8, Paragraph 2 stands, within a total quantity control district that meets air quality standards, those newly installed or modified stationary pollution sources for which pollutant emissions quantities reach a certain scale is required to perform air quality simulation by suitable air quality model and verify the influence will not exceed allowable increment limits within the district. The scientific and technical knowledge and information that the development and application of air quality models need to accomplish their missions spread in all kinds of academic and advisory organizations, which result into the decentralization of resources, duplicate constructions, various qualities, and barriers of information. Taiwan Air Quality Modeling Center (TAQMC) actually is a policy and technique supporting organization with a combination of experts and data resources in the industry, the government and the academics.
In 2002, Taiwan EPA enforced the allowable increase limits of air pollution in the air pollution control act, and the standard requests of air quality modeling in the procedure of environmental impact assessment. Therefore, Taiwan EPA supported to establish “air quality model supporting center”. In fact, it belongs to the role of technical supporting for policy determination in order to laterally integrate the knowledge of production and official related to talent and data resource. The tasks accomplished and relative productions are shown as follows according to the sequence of objectives for this year in the project plan.
Objectives for this year in the project plan
(1) Cooperate in the application and examination of air quality models.
(2) Assist the Environment Protection Bureaus of counties and cities in the technical examinations and consultations of air quality modeling.
(3) Update and pronounce the relative data for the simulations of allowable pollutant increase limits.
(4) Maintain and update the website of TAQMC and consultation service
(5) Assist amendment articles in a statute related to the air quality model application in air pollution
(6) Assist EPA office to review and analyze the air quality simulation results of environmental impact assessment
(7) Assist the examinations and provide suggestions of air quality model application in air pollution control plan
(8) Evaluation of air quality model for particulate matter and their composition in Taiwan.
(9) The influence assessment of transboundary long-range transport of air pollution on Taiwan air quality.
(10) Collection and compilation of results carried out by Taiwan Air Quality Modeling Center (TAQMC) for past years.
Execution results
The tasks accomplished in this project are shown as follows according to the sequence of objectives in the plan.
(1) Cooperate in the application and examination of air quality models
(a) The database and document for the application of model approve has been established. Part of the work item of database renew were completed as well in this year. This information can be retrieved from the web by all the potential users.
(b) According to the “Rule of air quality model simulation” and the “Guideline for air quality model endorsement”, the ISCST-3 model was submit to the supervising committee for review, and had been approved in December 23, 2011. Consequently, The other model will be submitted for approve on the next step.
(2) Assist the Environment Protection Bureaus of counties and cities in the technical examinations and consultations of air quality modeling
(a) Many air pollution sources reached a certain scale in 2010, but practically few cases need to simulate the impact of air quality. For the Article 4 of air quality modeling and simulation standards, the cases of particle from pilling site and fugitive sources and of VOC reaching certain scale but sum with nitrogen oxides less than 500 tons were not simulated.
(b) Remodeling 12 cases, three of them got the same results with application data, six of them were input the error parameters but the result matched the allowable pollutant increase limits and there of them circumvented the rules.
(3) Update and pronounce the relative data for the simulations of allowable pollutant increase limits
(a) The ISCST3 data of each station, using weighting interpolation results for missing data, have been calibrated and verified. The ISCST3 data from 2007 to 2010 have been established, and the results of simulation are similar to observation. Calculations of mixing height were tested using NCEP reanalysis data and sonding input data.
(b) The validation of modeling results show the meteorological simulation is very close to the validation standards during ozone and PM episodes, 2007. The temperature simulation is very well, RMSE of wind speed reach the standard of California Air Resources Board (2.0 m/s) but exceed a little over the Normalized Mean Bias (15%) and Normalized Mean Error (35%). Comparison of simulated wind direction with NCEP re-analysis data indicates the modeling results also show the consistency.
(4) Maintain and update the website of TAQMC and consultation service.
(a) At the present time, for the service for maintaining and updating the website of TAQMC, beside the routine such as make regular backups, about the security issues, after online scans, we find no any vulnerability or virus has been detected. In other words, without internet security problems.
(b) Collecting and organizing the works done by the TAQMC, and summarizing the archive into the content and menu of “achievement” item of the website page, where the submenus appear as “calendar year”. The work has been accomplished completely on time for the schedule plan of the project.
(5) Assist amendment articles in a statute related to the air quality model application in air pollution
(a) This project already accomplished the amendment articles in a statute (draft regulations) on “air quality modeling and simulation” as well as “air quality modeling assess technical standards”, the focal point is reinforcement of the integration the structures of this two standards, and treat the “air quality modeling and simulation” as a subset of “air quality modeling assess technical standards”, extending the application area of the later, includes the simulation of road development and the simulation of industrial area development into the standards, at the same time, in order to follow the requirement of the health risk assessment for environment evaluation, supplementing the technical standards related to the dry and wet deposition for Gaussian Model, to enable the “air quality modeling assess technical standards” satisfy the demand of the environment evaluation in all respects.
(6) Assist EPA office to review and analyze the air quality simulation results of environmental impact assessment
(a) Assist EPA office to review the air pollution simulation results of new source appliance and the case of environmental impact assessment. Presently all the work items can meet the progress of the original plan. The work to review the new source and EIA project are able to complete within the prescribed time limit.
(b) Assist EPA to review the case in EIA and new source review (NSR). The appropriate suggestion was submitted to EPA office. For example, there were 81 comments of Gaussian model simulation to EPA from January 1 to December 31, 2011.
(7) Assist the examinations and provide suggestions of air quality model application in air pollution control plan
(a) The suggestion is to use the back trajectory model to simulate the path and forecast the contribution of air pollution sources.
(b) Eulerian model can simulate the variability when performing one strategy or simulate the reduction amount when the worse control region improves to the better one.
(c) Two workshops of air quality model application in air pollution control plan were held in November 18, 2011 in Taipei and November 21, 2011 in Kaohsiung.
(8) Evaluation of air quality model for particulate matter and their composition in Taiwan.
(a) As an aspect of modeling results compared with the data observed by ordinary air quality monitoring station, the evaluation results of annual averages of PM2.5, PM10, NO2, and SO2 for entire Taiwan meet the benchmark of modeling performance, in which the evaluation results for Yun-Chin-Nan and Yilan air basins are worse than the other air basins (OB value between -23% and -24%).
(b) As another aspect of modeling results compared with the data observed by supersite, the prediction of PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations can catch the variance trend very well, but tend to overprediction comparing to ordinary station.
(9) The influence of transboundary long-range transport of air pollution on Taiwan air quality.
(c) The highest ratio of transboundary long-range transport effect on the monthly average of daily maximum ozone concentration in Taiwan in 2007 is 24.1 ppb on September, and the second highest is 21.6 ppb on May. Owing to the continuous increase emission in East Asia, the most severe situation in 2020 will increase 2.0 to 7.6 ppb for each month in Taiwan.
(d) Associated with the future economic growth of the Economic Area of Western side of Taiwan Strait in China, the increased emission will affect on future air quality in that area and Taiwan. Model prediction shows that the effect on daily maximum ozone concentration in Taiwan will increase 0.3-0.4 ppb for annual average, and 0.5 ppb for Spring average as highest effect.
(11) Collection and compilation of results carried out by Taiwan Air Quality Modeling Center (TAQMC) for past years.
(a) According to the various working items, the results carried out by Taiwan Air Quality Modeling Center (TAQMC) for past years are compiled and analyzed in this report. In addition, we also provide some suggestions for future work after detail review.
(b) As the change of key pollutant (e.g. PM2.5) and key issues (e.g. long-range transport, EIA), TAQMC will still face the various challenge to support the implementation of model-related works of EPA. To assist EPA to have better performance in air quality improvement, some of works need to collect more updated information and develop more elaborated techniques, and some of works need to do more detail analysis and carry out more comprehensive assessment.
