Application of a Lagrangian particle model to assess the impact of harbour, industrial and urban activities on air quality in the Taranto area, Italy

This paper evaluates the relative impact on air quality of harbour emissions, with respect to other emission sources located in the same area. The impact assessment study was conducted in the city of Taranto, Italy. This area was considered as representative of a typical Mediterranean harbour region, where shipping, industries and urban activities co-exist at a short distance, producing an ideal case to study the interaction among these different sources. Chemical and meteorological field campaigns were carried out to provide data to this study. An emission inventory has been developed taking into account industrial sources, traffic, domestic heating, fugitive and harbour emissions. A 3D Lagrangian particle dispersion model (SPRAY) has then been applied to the study area using reconstructed meteorological fields calculated by the diagnostic meteorological model MINERVE. 3D short term hourly concentrations have been computed for both all and specific sources. Industrial activities are found to be the main contributor to SO2. Industry and traffic emissions are mainly responsible for NOx simulated concentrations. CO concentrations are found to be mainly related to traffic emissions, while primary PM10 simulated concentrations tend to be linked to industrial and fugitive emissions. Contributions of harbour activities to the seasonal average concentrations of SO2 and NOx are predicted to be up to 5 and 30 μg m−3, respectively to be compared to a overall peak values of 60 μg m−3 for SO2 and 70 μg m−3 for NOx. At selected urban monitoring stations, SO2 and NOx average source contributions are predicted to be both of about 9% from harbour activities, while 87% and 41% respectively of total concentrations are predicted to be of industrial origin.