The impact of aviation emissions on urban air quality in Europe – An airport/city analysis
This article presents results from a modelling study carried out to assess the influence that aviation emissions have on air quality in Europe. Using a 3-D chemical transport model (LOTOS-EUROS) and its source apportionment capabilities, the study examined how aviation contributes to air pollutant (NO2, SO2, PM10 and PM2.5) concentrations with a particular focus on six European cities (London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt am Main, Munich and Brussels) with large airports nearby (Heathrow, Charles de Gaulle, Schiphol, Frankfurt am Main, Munich and Zaventem).
To better capture the local effects and spatial extent that aviation emissions at an airport have on the air quality in its vicinity, an exploratory study into the various emission datasets has been performed. This led to the conclusion that emissions data at the highest available resolution should be used for as many of the relevant pollutants as possible depending on the data availability.
The results from the simulations with the selected emission datasets show the following:
- At the airport locations, the average relative contributions from aviation to the concentration of NO2, SO2, PM2.5 and PM10 over the six airports that were simulated are, respectively, 38%, 45%, 6.0% and 4.5%.
- However, the relative contribution of aviation drops significantly when moving away from the airport location, at an average rate of 50% per 2.6 km distance from the airport.
- On average, in the respective city centres, the contribution from aviation to the annual NO2 concentration is 2.5%.
- For SO2, PM2.5 and PM10 the relative contributions are 8%, 0.5% and 0.3% respectively.