Impacts of Biomass Burning Emissions on

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Impacts of Biomass Burning Emissions on Air
Quality and Public Health in the United States
Daniel Tong, Rohit Mathur, George Pouliot,
Kenneth Schere, Shaocai Yu, Daiwen Kang, and
Jeff Young
Atmospheric Sciences Modeling Division, ARL/NOAA,
RTP, NC 27711 On assignment from Science and
Technology Corporation, Hampton, VA 23666 On
assignment to NERL/EPA, Research Triangle Park,
NC 27711
Chapel Hill, NC October 17, 2006
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Outline

• Biomass Burning Emissions for CMAQ
• Methodology
• Impacts on Air Quality
• Impacts on Public Health
• Conclusion

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Background

• Biomass burning includes wildfires, prescribed
  burning, open burning, and agricultural fires
• Wildfire is a natural disaster that claims human
  life and property
• Most attention has been paid to direct life and
  health threats, mostly to firefighters.
• We focus on the indirect impact of wildfires on
  the general population due to degraded air quality

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Methodology

• Integrated Assessment Approach link emissions to
  pollutant concentrations, to exposure, and to
  health impacts

• Exposure
• Health Impacts

• Emissions
• Air Quality

• Method
• Use satellite and ground data to estimate
  biomass burning emissions.
• Use the Eta-CMAQ air quality forecast model to
  link emissions to air quality.
• Use calculated pollutant concentrations and
  population census data to estimate exposure.
• Use concentration-response relationships from
  epidemiological studies to estimate damage.

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National Emission Inventories for Biomass Burning

• Historic data based on multi-year state-level
  inventory
• Accurate fire data for the year of 2002
• Spatially and temporally averaged fire data is
  currently used in air quality forecast operation

Question During a fire-active period, are the
averaged fire emissions sufficient for CMAQ to
reproduce O3 and PM observation? When there is
no fire, are the persisting fire emissions too
much for CMAQ?
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PM2.5 During A Wildfire Episode
TOMS (AAI)
Origin of Fires
Evolution of Fire Plumes in US
PM2.5 in CMAQ (Model vs. Obs)
(Source Yu et al., 2006)
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Fire Emissions and PM2.5 in Florida
Fires with 2001 NEI
Fires with revised NEI
(Source Pouliot et al., 2005)
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Near Real-Time Fire Emissions

• Use the Hazard Mapping System (HMS) product from
  satellites and ground data to create a real-time
  emission inventory for fires.

Max PM2.5 Emissions
Max NOx Emissions
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Fire-Induced Degradation in Air Quality Ambient
O3
June 19 July 9, 2004
Difference in average concentrations (Fire
Base)
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Fire-Induced Degradation in Air Quality Ambient
PM2.5
June 19 July 9, 2004
Difference in average concentrations (Fire
Base)
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Health Impacts of Biomass Burning Emissions
Question
What is the health consequence of degraded
air quality due to biomass burning?
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Mortality Estimation Method

• Calculate mortalities resulting from O3 or PM2.5
  exposure using dose-response functions from
  epidemiological literature
• ?M change in number of deaths.
• Y0 annual baseline mortality rate.
• Population size of affected population.
• ? relative risk per unit change in
  concentration, determined from meta-analysis of
  epidemiological time-series studies.
• ?c difference in ambient O3 or PM2.5
  concentration between two model runs with
  emissions from fires turned on and off.
• O3 concentration-response function was derived
  from a time-series analyses.
• PM2.5 concentration-response function was taken
  from a cohort study which estimate total
  mortality resulting from chronic exposure.

?M Y0 Population exp (??c)-1
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Concentration-Response Functions
Calculating Health Days Lost
i Age group i, N Number of age groups
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US Population Map
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O3-related Health Impact
Total 160,591 (83,544 237,329, 95 CI) health
days lost
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PM2.5-related Health Impact
Total 465,198 (242,010 687,490 for 95 CI)
health days lost
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Conclusion

• Biomass burning emissions are important for air
  quality during fire-active periods
• --- Up to 5 ppbv increases in average O3
• --- Up to 54 ug/m3 increases in average PM2.5
• Indirect health impact of biomass burning is
  considerable
• For the 18-day episodes
• --- 160,591 health days lost from O3
  impact
• --- 465,198 health days lost from PM2.5
  impact

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Future Work

• Uncertainty Analysis
• --- Fire emissions fire detection, fuel
  loading, combustion efficiency, emission factor
  etc.
• --- Air quality modeling
• --- Exposure and health impact estimates
• Annual and multi-year simulations
• --- Results restricted to a 3-week simulation
• --- Annual simulation needed to obtain the total
  impact
• --- A multi-year simulation is needed due to
  large variations in fire emissions

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Acknowledgement
We thank Deborah Luecken, S.T. Rao, Peter Egeghy,
Tom Pierce, Tom Pace, and Michelle Bell for
comments
Disclaimer The research presented here was
performed under the Memorandum of Understanding
between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) and the U.S. Department of Commerce's
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) and under agreement number DW13921548.
This work constitutes a contribution to the NOAA
Air Quality Program. Although it has been
reviewed by EPA and NOAA and approved for
publication, it does not necessarily reflect
their policies or views.