Air Quality Impacts from Prescribed Burning

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Air Quality Impacts from Prescribed Burning
Karsten Baumann, PhD. Polly Gustafson
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Military Installations in SE-US occupy endangered
species habitat while maintaining ecosystems with
prescribed burning activities, therefore
increasing risk of NAAQS violations.
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Background

• Other agencies such as USEPA, USFWS, and GFC
  agree that prescribed burning is the best and
  most cost efficient method for maintaining
  habitat.
• This study started with FLAQS which was to look
  at ozone in three cities.
• Dodged the bullet on ozone, due to weather.
• PM 2.5 followed the ozone pattern
• Needed to get ahead of the curve on PM 2.5
• In the mean time, US EPA designated the Russell
  County-Muscogee Air shed non-attainment for PM
  2.5.
• In 2005, ADEM and GA EPD petitioned US EPA to use
  the figures from the spatial averaging effort.
• However, numbers have to remain GOOD for 2005
  in order to stay in attainment.

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The Study

• Forest Fires (wildfires prescribed fires) are a
  significant source for primary PM2.5 in GA and
  SE-US.
• PM emissions have not been well characterized,
  esp. particulate organic compounds (POC) in PM2.5
  and their impact on air quality.
• Developed an emission profile for this new PB
  source and estimate its contribution to ambient
  PM2.5 observed at the States regulatory
  monitoring sites.
• Prescribed burning is indicated as primary land
  management tool for
• the benefit of the forest ecosystem
• endangered species
• and in the case of the U.S. military, DODs
  mission.

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Importance of direct (primary) vs. indirect
(secondary) emissions ?
O3, SOA
CO CO2
VOCs
NOx
Toxics
PM
Organic carbon (OC) is a dominant species of
particulate emission. Emission Factors (EF)
higher at smoldering than flaming even more as C
content increases.
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Comparisons With Other Studies
Dr. B characterized particulate emissions from a
brief pilot study in April 2004 and compared them
with previous studies. Findings

• Similar identified organic mass concentrations
  and fractions
• Different OC/EC ratios, but similar value from
  this study Hays

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Source Apportionment at Receptor Sites
Comparison of PB profile with Hays et al., while
all other source profiles remained same!
PB contribution to measured ambient OC Hays et
al. vs. This study max 1.52 mg m-3 (20
) max 1.76 mg m-3 (28 )
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Major Findings

• Climatological effect of precipitation-rich years
  beneficial for PM2.5 attainment.
• Local impacts from high PB and wild fire
  intensities cause violation of 24h and also
  annual NAAQS for PM2.5.
• Annual PM2.5 NAAQS is sensitive to i) SOA formed
  under regional stagnation in summer ii) Primary
  PM2.5 from local sources at night in winter iii)
  regional transport within air sheds.
• Emission Factors (EF) higher at smoldering than
  flaming even more as C content increases.
• Application of in situ PB emissions profile
  yields 1.3 times higher contributions to ambient
  OC than laboratory generated emissions profiles

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Recommendations

• More emission characterizations needed to
  differentiate specific land use types and fuel
  types across GA and the SE.
• Size and specie resolved emissions necessary to
  better understand mechanisms of primary and
  secondary PM formations.
• Tracking of plume within first 2-3 hours would
  allow assessment of chemical reactivity and
  (trans-) formation potential of aerosol species.
• Impacts on larger temporal and spatial scales
  (climate, haze, region)?

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Questions?