Source Apportionment and Data Assimilation in Urban Air Quality Modelling for NO2: The Lyon Case Study

Developing effective strategies for reducing the atmospheric pollutant concentrations below regulatory threshold levels requires identifying the main origins/sources of air pollution. This can be achieved by implementing so called source apportionment methods in atmospheric dispersion models. This study presents the results of a source apportionment module implemented in the SIRANE urban air-quality model. This module uses the tagged species approach and includes two methods, named SA-NO and SA-NOX, in order to evaluate the sources’ contributions to the NO2 concentrations in air. We also present results of a data assimilation method, named SALS, that uses the source apportionment estimates to improve the accuracy of the SIRANE model results. The source apportionment module and the assimilation method have been tested on a real case study (the urban agglomeration of Lyon, France, for the year 2008) focusing on the NO2 emissions and concentrations. Results of the source apportionment with the SA-NO and SA-NOX models are similar. Both models show that traffic is the main cause of NO2 air pollution in the studied area. Results of the SALS data assimilation method highlights its ability in improving the predictions of an urban atmospheric models.