A source area model incorporating simplified atmospheric dispersion and advection at fine scale for population air pollutant exposure assessment

A source-area model for estimating population exposure to air pollutants at the scale of a neighborhood is developed. The model explicitly accounts for the first-order influence of atmospheric dispersion of emissions on surface concentrations. The model is used to produce concentration surfaces at high spatial and temporal resolution, and is calibrated using measurements from a fixed monitoring network and evaluated against measurements from two intensive measurement campaigns. The source area model is compared against a fixed buffer model that ignores meteorological dispersion. The source area model captures the influence of wind speed, wind direction and stability on the dispersion and advection of emissions, and thereby achieves modest improvement of performance over the fixed buffer model. The model is useful for the determination of personal exposures and health effects to local emissions.