An Effective Tool for Air Quality Assessment to Assist in Control Strategy Evaluation

The assessment of emission reductions and related environmental impacts are essential elements in determining directions for effective technology research and development. This paper describes a methodology and new software tool developed to simplify the evaluation of emission control strategies. It is particularly effective in evaluating the impacts of innovative technologies on air quality. The tool uses a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) to manage and modify the large data sets associated with air quality. Mobile, stationary, and biogenic emission sources can be easily modified at a disaggregated level to represent the implementation of regulations or the introduction of clean technologies within an existing emission inventory. The database can be interrogated to extract information and generate custom reports and emission summaries. The hourly gridded emission files required by photochemical models are automatically generated. Implementation of a system with this structure will activate a sophisticated mechanism for designing emission control strategies, broaden the access to air quality data, and facilitate the growing need to assess air quality, both domestically and internationally.