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Knowledge Transfer

Global Atmosphere

Plume Science

Near-Airport Pollution

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Near-Airport Pollution

The effect of emissions from aircraft and related activities such as ground transportation on the local air quality and public health around airports are of significant concern. Future expansions of European airports will be constrained by mandatory air quality limits for NO2 that will apply from 2010, in particular the annual mean limit of 40ug/m3. The need to meet this constraint is currently the most difficult issue confronting the expansion of Heathrow airport. In contrast to that need, existing models that predict near-airport pollution are of uncertain quality and the links between those who develop models from basic physical and chemical principles and those who use off-the-shelf models to make predictions, are weak.

Better models for predicting short term and localized (street scale) emissions are essential when looking at the impact of future airport expansions on near-airport areas. Such advanced models will also allow a more informed approach to the drafting of future air quality legislation. In the course of developing models of the appropriate quality (fitness for purpose), it is important to first study and understand the quality of existing models and to develop a formal protocol for their evaluation and guidelines for their use. In order to validate advanced models, it is necessary to have or produce sufficient field observations of the physical and chemical variables.

This research theme links directly with activities within the global atmosphere theme, and includes studies to determine the impact of near-airport pollution under present and future global atmospheric conditions.