AIR POLLUTION   

Environmental Hazards and Air Quality

The CDC Office of Global Health estimates that one-quarter of the world's population is exposed to unhealthy concentrations of air pollutants, such as particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and other chemicals.  Air pollution is estimated to be responsible for nearly 5% of global disease.

Outdoor air problems largely involve particulate sources such as factories and industrial areas, deforestation, and forest fires; and modes of transportation such as motor vehicles, farm equipment, sea-going vessels, or aircraft.   Studies have shown that poor air quality is a cause of acute respiratory infections, asthma, heart and lung diseases, allergies, and several types of cancers.

A number of hurdles exist to improve air quality.   The main hurdle is the lack of knowledge and data on air pollution and the links to chronic health problems.   Next is the lack of agreement on international standards for air quality and emissions, such as the ongoing debate over the 1992 Kyoto Protocols.   Finally, air quality improvements often conflict with international economic trends which range from industrialization to the increase in transcontinental transport, urbanization, and the growth of urban areas.   Even where air quality regulations exist in developing countries, they are rarely enforced.

Air Quality Monitoring

To evaluate air quality, the air must either be sampled and tested with real-time field instrumentation, onsite laboratory analysis, or by the collection of air samples for laboratory analysis.   The evaluation of air quality is complex because contaminant concentrations vary with time, distance from source, and with meteorological conditions.   Because of the adverse health effects of various air contaminants from human activities, a patchwork of international, federal, state (or regional), and local regulations (laws, initiatives, and advisories) have been enacted.   The complexity of air quality evaluation has led to the development of software to assist with monitoring and assessment.

Air Quality Software

Geologic Resources is a reseller of Breeze air dispersion, hazardous gas dispersion, explosion, and fire modeling software.   We also list links to a number of sources of geologic, scientific, and environmental software on our internet software links page.   Some Breeze software that can assist with compliance, monitoring, and assessment include:

• BREEZE AERMOD / ISC is a new generation air quality modeling system used to support both regulatory and non-regulatory modeling requirements worldwide.   This application is used to assess the impact of air emissions from a variety of industrial sources and includes enhanced versions of both the AERMOD (with PRIME building downwash utility) and ISC dispersion models.
• BREEZE ROADS software can be used in conjunction with the MOBILE5 or EMFAC emission models or other emission data to demonstrate compliance with National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), Federal Conformity Rules, the UK's National Air Quality Strategy, and modeling for highway site and design selection.
• BREEZE CALPUFF is a multi-layer, multi-species, non-steady-state puff dispersion model, which can simulate the effects of time and space-varying meteorological conditions on pollutant transport, transformation, and removal.   CALPUFF can use the three-dimensional meteorological fields developed by the CALMET model or single station winds in a format consistent with the meteorological files used to drive the Industrial Source Complex Short-term version 3 (ISCST3) steady-state Gaussian model.
• BREEZE CALMET is the meteorological preprocessor for the CALPUFF transport and dispersion model.
• BREEZE AERMET Pro is used to process meteorological data for input into the BREEZE AERMOD dispersion model.
• BREEZE SCREEN3 software is also unique among EPA models because it can incorporate the effects of inversion break-up and shoreline fumigation.
• BREEZE DEGADIS software is ideal for determining toxic endpoint distances and distances to lower flammability limits (LFLs) for certain toxic and flammable chemicals in accordance with EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) requirements.
• BREEZE SLAB softare is ideal for determining toxic endpoint distances and distances to lower flammability limits (LFLs) for certain toxic and flammable chemicals in accordance with EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) requirements.
• BREEZE AFTOX is a Gaussian puff/plume dispersion model that estimates concentrations downwind from accidental chemical releases where the dispersing plume has the same density as air.
• BREEZE Fire/Explosion models are ideal for real-world applications, such as control-room siting at a natural gas refinery, or meeting governmental regulations, such as the US EPA's Risk Management Plan (RMP) ruling.
• BREEZE INPUFF software is an integrated Gaussian puff model developed by the U.S. EPA to model buoyant or neutrally buoyant gas releases from a stack. The release duration can be specified as either finite or continuous. Source types include stacks and surface-based releases.
• The algorithms contained in the BREEZE HAZ EXPERT are based primarily on EPA’s document, “Guidance on the Application of Refined Dispersion Models to Hazardous/Toxic Air Pollutant Releases.