Carbon Monoxide Emitted from the City of Buenos Aires and Transported to Neighbouring Districts
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Latin American Applied Research 40:267-273(2010) CARBON MONOXIDE EMITTED FROM THE CITY OF BUENOS AIRES AND TRANSPORTED TO NEIGHBOURING DISTRICTS N.A. MAZZEO †, A.L. PINEDA ROJAS ‡ and L.E. VENEGAS † Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) † Dpto. de Ing. Química, Fac. Regional Avellaneda, Univ. Tecnológica Nacional, 1870 Buenos Aires, Argentina. [email protected] - [email protected] ‡ Centro de Inv. del Mar y la Atmósfera (CIMA, UBA/CONICET), 1428 Buenos Aires, Argentina [email protected] Abstract −−−−−− Air pollutants emitted in a city may lutant dispersion in an inhomogeneous urban area (Mik- reach neighbouring areas. This paper describes and hailuta et al. , 2009). Sometimes unavailable input data applies a methodology for estimating the CO trans- make application of complex numerical tools not possi- ported from the City of Buenos Aires (CBA) to ble, and simple urban background pollution models be- neighbouring districts. The methodology is applica- come an acceptable alternative (Berkowicz, 2000; ble only for inert pollutants. This preliminary Hanna et al. , 2002; de Leeuw et al. , 2002). evaluation shows that 32% of CO annually emitted is Air pollutant emissions within cities deteriorate local transported to the de la Plata River. The smallest urban air quality. Furthermore, cities interact with their fraction (7.5% of annual emission) goes to the dis- surroundings by exporting and importing pollution. The trict of Avellaneda. The main factors controlling the City of Buenos Aires (CBA) (34°35’S – 58°26’W) is a outflow flux of CO are evaluated and their relative city-state and the capital of Argentina. It has an exten- 2 importance is discussed. It is also evaluated that the sion of 203km and 2776138 inhabitants (INDEC, 2002) CO emissions in the CBA may contribute to 8h-CO and is located on the west coast of the de la Plata River. background concentrations in the Metropolitan Area The CBA is surrounded by 24 districts that belong to the of Buenos Aires (MABA) with more than 10% of the Province of Buenos Aires (the “Greater Buenos Aires”, 2 Air Quality Standard. The districts of the MABA lo- GBA). The GBA has an extension of 3627km and cated west and northwest the CBA are the more af- 8684437 inhabitants (Fig. 1). fected by the CO emitted in the CBA. Each of the 24 districts has its own local govern- Keywords −−−−−− Air quality management; Air pollu- ment. At each district, its local environmental authority tion impact; Buenos Aires; Carbon monoxide. is required to evaluate the air quality condition and to define and implement air-pollution control measures for I. INTRODUCTION 58 W 57 W 56 W The urban atmosphere is subjected to large inputs of an- 33 S URUGUAY d e l a P lat a R 4 iv thropogenic contaminants arising from both stationary 3 34 S er (power plants, industries, commercial and residential 8 2 ARGENTINA d 35 S 9 e heating and cooking) and mobile sources (traffic and 1 la 7 P 5 lat transportation). Urban air pollution poses a significant a 13 11 6 Ri BUENOS AIRES ve threat to human health and the environment throughout 12 CITY 10 r both the developed and developing world. There are 22 studies (Fenger, 1999; Molina and Molina, 2004), which 14 21 15 23 highlight the atmospheric pollution problems in large 18 cities and the need to establish air pollution manage- 17 24 19 20 ment and control programs. Within the framework of an 16 urban air quality management system, atmospheric dis- persion models provide a link between the source emis- 10 km sions and ambient concentrations. Urban dispersion models range from simple empirical models to complex Fig. 1. Map of the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires, includ- three-dimensional urban air-shed models. Some exam- ing the City of Buenos Aires and the Greater Buenos Aires. ples of these models are the UAM model (Morris and Districts of the Greater Buenos Aires: 1: Vicente López; 2: Myers, 1990), the DAUMOD model (Mazzeo and Ve- San Isidro; 3: San Fernando; 4: Tigre; 5: San Martín; 6: Tres negas, 1991); the UK-ADAMS Urban model (Car- de Febrero; 7: San Miguel; 8: Malvinas Argentinas; 9: José C. ruthers et al ., 1994); the Danish OML model (Olesen, Paz, 10: Morón; 11: Hurlingham; 12: Ituzaingó; 13: Moreno; 14: Merlo; 15: La Matanza; 16: Ezeiza; 17: Esteban Echeve- 1995); the UDM-FMI model (Karppinen et al ., 2000). rría; 18: Lomas de Zamora; 19: Almirante Brown; 20: Floren- Complex models may include some aspects of the mi- cio Varela; 21: Lanús; 22: Avellaneda; 23: Quilmes; 24: croclimate of a city (e.g., temperature inhomogeneity, Berazategui. local circulations). The combination of complex models local sources. Therefore, knowledge of the amount of with local measurements would improve results of pol- air pollutants coming from the CBA is useful for im- 267 Latin American Applied Research 40:267-273(2010) plementing an Air Quality Management Plan at to background concentrations in neighbouring districts neighbouring districts. The CBA and the GBA form the is evaluated. Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (MABA), which is II. CO TRANSPORTED FROM THE CBA TO considered the third megacity in Latin America, follow- NEIGHBOURING DISTRICTS ing Mexico City (Mexico) and Sao Paulo (Brazil). The MABA is located on a flat terrain with height differ- This section includes the description and application of ences less than 30m. The de la Plata River is a shallow the methodology developed to evaluate the air pollutant estuary of 35000km 2, approximately. It is 320km length transported from the city to neighbouring districts. and in front of the city, its width is about 42km. The de A. Methodology la Plata River plain has a temperate climate. Annual -1 The proposed methodology considers that the city is di- mean wind speed is 4.7m s and the annual frequency vided into square grid cells with vertical extensions of calms is 1.6%. The wind blows clean air from the given by the upper boundary of the plume at each grid river towards the city 58% of the time. Breeze circula- cell. The air pollutant transported (F) (mass time -1) tions over the wide estuary of the de la Plata River across the border of the city at a grid cell to a could bring pollutants back to the city and its surround- neighbouring district, can be estimated by the following ings. However, the frequency of atmospheric recircula- expression: tion events over the city is small: 8% in summer, 7% in h autumn, 5% in winter and 7% in spring (Venegas and F = ∆l C u)z,x( () dzz (1) Mazzeo, 1999). ∫ n z0 In the City of Buenos Aires there are three Thermal with the x-axis in the direction of the mean wind and the Power Plants situated in the coastal region and some z-axis vertical, ∆l is the length of the border between the small industries. In addition, more than two million ve- neighbouring district and the city at the grid cell, z is hicles circulate daily on the streets of the city. Mazzeo 0 the surface roughness length, h is the vertical extension and Venegas (2003) developed a first version of CO and of the plume at the grid cell, C(x,z) is the air pollutant NO (as NO ) emission inventory for the CBA. Recently x 2 concentration at the grid cell and u (z) is the wind ve- an updated version including the emissions in the n locity component perpendicular to the city border at the MABA has been developed (Pineda Rojas et al., 2007). grid cell. Considering that the border between the city These inventories include: a) area sources: residential, and a district named “k” extends along a number M commercial, small industries, aircrafts landing/take-off k grid cells, the air pollutant transported to this district at the domestic airport, and road traffic and b) point (F ) is estimated as sources: stacks of the Power Plants. Since the Power k Plants burn natural gas most of the year and consume Mk h F = ∆l ()()zx,C u dzz (2) fuel oil as much as twenty days in wintertime only, they k ∑ ∫ n =1j are responsible for 0.04% of CO annual emission in the z0 j city. For this reason, only the CO emitted from area “j” (=1…Mk) indicates each grid cell where there is a sources is considered in this study. Road traffic ac- border between the district “k” and the CBA. There is a counts for 99.4% of CO annual emission in the city. The perfect overlapping between the M k grid cells and the vehicle fleet composition is 79.8% passenger cars, 1.6% border of the “k” district. The wind velocity component buses, 15% heavy-duty vehicles (HDV) and 3.6% mo- (u n) perpendicular to the city border in each grid cell can torcycles. Buses and HDV are mainly diesel and car be obtained knowing wind speed (u) and the direction of fleet is composed by 78.9% petrol, 16.0% diesel and airflow vector ( θ) measured from the North. Consider- 5.1% GNC (compressed natural gas). Estimated CO an- ing ( ω) the direction of the vector perpendicular to the nual emission from area sources in the CBA is 324.7Gg external face of the city boundary, also measured from -1 year (Pineda Rojas et al. , 2007). the North, results u n(z)=u(z) cos( θ–ω) (Fig. 2). The The air quality in the city has been the subject of transport of mass of air pollutant from the city towards several studies carried out during the last years.