The Difficulty of Forecasting Ambient Air Quality— A Weak Link in Pollution Control

Abstract

This article examines one important component of the problem of implementing the federal government's Clean Air policy, namely, the difficulty of quantifying the rela tionship between emissions to the atmosphere and ambient air quality. Short·, middle·, and long.tenn contt"ol strategies are discussed with an emphasis on the information needed for their effective assessment and implemeDlation. The reo quirement thus identified is compared with the information provided by air pollution models; it is shown that at theil" present stage of development, even the most sophisticated diffusion models are of limited usefulness in implementing CUl"rent llir pollution legislation. In view of the high cost of pollution control, further investment in model develop' mem is thought justifiable, though there al"e significant problems to be ovel"come. It is suggested that for the time being, panels of expel"ts might be used to make air quality fot·ecasts.

Social impact assessment of regional plans: a review of methods and issues and a recommended process

“…Simulations of traffic flows and air pollution have been useful in planning, but simulations of social systems are likely to have quite limited value in SIA for the near future. Current understanding of social behavior is not sufficiently specific to lead to SIA-type predictions (Conn, 1976;Lee, 1973), due partly to the paucity of relevant diachronic statistical analyses. Also, existing simulation models have been found to be too inaccurate to be useful in SIA and they have been expensive to develop and maintain (Association of Bay Area Governments, 1977).…”

“…1 n these early exploratory years (I 977-1980), plan evaluation emphasis should be on the identification of impacts, their intelligent qualitative description and ordinal ranking. In other words, one should not spend time and money on exact but wrong-headed models (Alonso, 1968;Webber, 1968Webber, , 1969Boyce et al, 1970;Holling and Goldberg, 1971;Lee, 1973;Conn, 1976). The evaluation variables that will probably be important, such as local government costs, health effects, effects on federal and state air quality and water quality standards, trip congestion/convenience, low-and moderate-cost housing availability, etc., can be studied now, however.…”

Potential negative effects of the Brazilian Space Program on coastal sharks

“…In fact, to date, most countries that rely on space launches have not established environmental disaster monitoring and prevention programs, including Brazil. Fortunately, biomonitoring methods and computational modeling methodologies are available to assess the potential effects of space fuel combustion, as well as gas behavior when released into the environment, allowing for real-time assessment of the impacts of both orbital and suborbital launches (Conn et al, 1975;Carlsen et al, 2008).…”

Combined transportation network optimization and spatial allocation of pollution emissions

“…The rollback models are generally simple and inexpensive to apply, but they are often formulated for a specific set of emissions and meteorological conditions, and therefore cannot be extrapolated to other conditions [Conn (1975)]. The Gaussian-type diffusion models, on the other hand, are more versatile and have a greater potential for accuracy, but they are generally more expensive (especially in terms of data needs) and more difficult to apply.…”