Planning (Working Group 5)

Guidance

Leaders: Stijn Janssen (VITO), Joana Soares (NILU)

Description

The aim of this WG is to support the use of modelling approaches for air quality planning purposes. It includes:

• Support to local, regional and national authorities in designing efficient and coherent measures,
• Exchange of good practices to harmonise the reporting of air quality plans and ensure comparability,
• The development of QA/QC methods to assess the quality of models when used for planning purposes.

The WG5 activities will focus on:

1. Using models in support to the AQ planning process. What are the main obstacles, both from a technical and governance perspective?
2. Assessing the sensitivity and robustness of model responses to emission reductions
3. Providing recommendations on the combined use of models and observations for planning purposes
4. Supporting the reporting of plans and air quality measures through a common template
5. Evaluating consequences for e-reporting of planning data
6. Providing overall support to model users (SHERPA, air quality models…) in their planning activities (measures, emission and model scenarios)

Currently we are performing a "bias projection" exercise, to improve the way in which air quality models are "bias corrected" both on basecase and scenarios. The description of the "phase 1" of this exercise can be found here. The description of the "phase 2" of this exercise can be found here.

Publications

• Assessment of the sensitivity of model responses to urban emission changes in support of emission reduction strategies (2023)
• Assessing the Impact of Local Policies on PM2.5 Concentration Levels: Application to 10 European Cities (2022)
• Impact of SOx, NOx and NH3 emission reductions on PM2.5 concentrations across Europe: Hints for future measure development (2021)
• Non-linear response of PM2.5 to changes in NOx and NH3 emissions in the Po basin (Italy): Consequences for air quality plans (2021)
• Prioritising the sources of pollution in European cities: Do air quality modelling applications provide consistent responses? (2020)
• Application of the SHERPA source-receptor relationships, based on the EMEP MSC-W model, for the assessment of air quality policy scenarios (2019)
• Best practices for local and regional Air Quality management (2022)
• Supporting the improvement of air quality management practices: The “FAIRMODE pilot” activity (2019)
• Indicators to support the dynamic evaluation of air quality models (2014)
• Dynamic evaluation of air quality models over European regions (2015)
• Adding spatial flexibility to source-receptor relationships for air quality modeling (2017)
• On the design and assessment of regional air quality plans: The SHERPA approach (2016)
• Screening of the EMEP source receptor relationships: application to five European countries (2016)
• A new approach to design source receptor relationships for air quality modelling (2016)

Tools and datasets

WG5 Meetings