This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111.5).
Atmospheric airsheds, surface areas that contribute contaminants and/or pollutants to a defined location or the airmass above this location, have been previously defined as spatially and temporally static. Dr.s Julie Snow and Jack Livingston at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Peter Weiss-Penzias at the University of California, Santa Cruz will address the need for more meaningful airshed delineations by exploring the variability of airsheds. Further, the research will examine how temporal and spatial changes in airsheds relate to air quality and mercury deposition variability and evaluate environmental factors that significantly affect changes in air quality chemistry and mercury deposition rates. The project will incorporate three objectives: (1) Delineate atmospheric contribution basins (airsheds) based on long-term back trajectory trends, which will allow for the analysis of spatial and temporal variability of these basins. (2) Determine the relationship between airshed geometry and air quality (including specific considerations of criteria pollutants and mercury deposition). This portion of the research will integrate air chemistry data that is publicly available from the EPA and mercury deposition data that is publicly available from the Mercury Deposition Network (MDN) with airsheds in Pennsylvania. (3) Create a website to host a user-friendly airshed delineation extension for the ArcGIS platform that integrates with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration HYSPLIT trajectory model for use as a research and teaching tool. The available extension will allow the user to delineate contribution basins based on the frequency of back trajectory paths for a given time period and location.
The development of tools for defining airsheds and their variability, quantifying inputs of pollution to the airsheds, and understanding regional air transport will integrate existing approaches and technologies in a novel way. In doing so, the project will reconsider the temporal and spatial variability in regional air transport and improve our understanding of air quality and mercury deposition variability in Pennsylvania. While this work is critical to directing air quality policy, it is equally important in developing accurate air quality forecasts, which will improve the health of individuals and communities. The final result of the project, an ArcGIS extension made publicly available via a webpage, will provide a unique tool for examining regional air quality and teaching undergraduate students; the tool will enable individuals to explore regional atmospheric transport for any given location. Undergraduate students at Slippery Rock University will participate in the development of the webpage, the authoring of documentation, and troubleshooting end user concerns. The dissemination of results will occur broadly through peer reviewed publications and presentations.
