Jul 29, 2016 | Air Pollution, Young Scientists
By Anneke Brand, IIASA science communication intern 2016.
Accidents, lane closures, and congestion all affect the flow of road traffic and harmful emissions from vehicles. Live traffic data allow congestion to be detected more accurately and provide a more precise overview of vehicle emissions at different times and places. In his project for the Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP), Fabian Heidegger investigates how road traffic affects air pollution in cities, using Vienna and surrounding areas as a case study.
Air pollution is a major problem in Europe and globally. Health impacts of air pollution include a range of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. “10-20% of Europe’s urban population is exposed to excessive levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), along with several other air pollutants. NO2 pollution is highest along busy roads. Technical measures have so far often been circumvented, so cities are looking for other measures to reduce the pollution load. Traffic management has therefore gained interest as a way to reduce air pollution,” says Jens Borken-Kleefeld, Heidegger’s study leader at IIASA.
To calculate the amount of air pollution that cars and other vehicles release into the air, researchers use models that apply various sets of data: traffic networks, where and how far people drive, and emission factors of different vehicle categories. Input data for the model may include how many people live in a certain area, how many of them use cars, where they normally drive, and how many grams of pollutants (such as nitric oxide and NO2 gases) their type of cars emit per kilometer.
Inner city Vienna. © Radub85 | Dreamstime.com
Most of these models rely on average daily traffic data. For Heidegger’s YSSP project, which is related to his PhD work at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, he is incorporating real-time data, measured every five minutes, into a traffic simulation model developed by Intelligent Transport Systems Vienna Region. A set of detectors in and around the city record the number and speed of vehicles. In addition, location data from the taxi fleet is incorporated into the traffic simulation. Heidegger can therefore immediately identify adverse traffic conditions like stop-and-go traffic, which has a high impact on emissions. This allows for a more accurate calculation and can help design traffic interventions for improving both traffic flow and air quality.
“In the case of a road closure, local emissions will obviously be lower at the specific road but total emissions for the area could be higher than before when drivers use alternative, longer routes or end up in stop-and-go traffic,” says Heidegger.
In order to understand how these diversions and the displacement of pollutants can affect overall emissions, Heidegger will first determine the emissions per street section, and second, what the effects are of diversions from day-to-day traffic patterns. Together with researchers from the Air Quality and Greenhouse Gases Program at IIASA, Heidegger plans to assess the impact of different intervention scenarios, for example an environmental zone in the city, where only modern cars will be allowed to enter. In a second scenario he will look at the effect of people commuting to Vienna, and a third scenario will explore the consequences of expanding pedestrian zones. The researchers hope that this study will better their understanding of the potential of traffic management to reduce air pollution.
More information
Air Pollution Policy Review 2011-2013
GAINS Model
AIR Program
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Jun 2, 2016 | Climate Change
By Katherine Leitzell, IIASA science writer and press officer (and cyclist)
In May over 50 IIASA staff members took part in the Austrian Bike to Work month (Osterreich Radelt zur Arbeit), logging 11,681 kilometers riding to and from the institute in Laxenburg. The institute took fifth place in Austria in terms of kilometers ridden, and first place in Lower Austria.
According to the Austrian initiative’s calculations, this effort translated into saving over 1900 kg of CO2 emissions, or on average 36 kg per person—which is approximately 4% of an average Austrian’s monthly CO2 emissions. However, this calculation assumed that each of the IIASA cyclists would have been otherwise driving alone in a car. Since many people ride the bus or take public transport if they’re not biking, the actual emission savings from our cycling efforts in May were in fact much less. In fact, since buses and trains run anyway, cycling to work may make no impact whatsoever on emissions of air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Does that mean it’s not worth it to make the effort?
The author’s route to the office. © Katherine Leitzell | IIASA
IIASA researcher Jens Borken has analyzed the impacts that our daily travel has on the individual climate footprint. Personal mobility—all kinds of travel—make up about one third of the average European’s annual greenhouse gas emissions: the rest come from consumption choices and household heating and energy use. Of the carbon footprint from mobility, he says, commuting generally only makes up 10-15% of that. The largest part of the mobility budget is related to shorter and longer distance leisure travel, and in particular from air travel.
“From a quantitative perspective, the climate benefit of riding your bike is small, but it can be one step on a path to a low-carbon lifestyle.” says Borken. “As researchers who work on climate change, riding a bike to work (and possibly further) brings one piece of our lives in line with the message that avoiding fossil fuel consumption is imperative. I think that that is valuable. But it need not stop there. Travel choices are important, especially for longer distances, but so are consumption choices and energy usage and efficiency.”
Charlie Wilson, a researcher at the Tyndall Centre and IIASA, recently won a grant from the European Research Council to explore the role that social influence plays in spreading climate innovations. He says, “As social animals we are strongly influenced by what others do; as psychological beings we strive for consistency. Changing a behavior – like cycling to work – may have a small impact in isolation. But this impact is magnified through positive spillover effects. Others may imitate or be inspired by our commitment to cycling. And this change in behavior may also strengthen the pro-environmental aspects of our own self-identity, reducing dissonance between our work and domestic lives, and supporting further changes in behavior.”
Of course there are benefits of cycling beyond the environmental or climate impact, which is one reason that once they start, many people keep it up. Cycling regularly can save money compared to commuting by car or public transport, and like any regular form of exercise, it can bring health benefits and stress relief. It also brings autonomy and flexibility compared to public transport.
Borken points to research showing that the health benefits of cycling outweigh the exposure to air pollutants that a cyclist might experience on busy city streets—and that automobile drivers are exposed to even higher levels of air pollution within their cars. Cyclists who ride to IIASA, located about 15km outside Vienna, probably have even lower exposure to air pollution riding along tree-lined bike paths.
“Riding to work in the morning wakes me up and prepares me for the day ahead. Even if windy and challenging, the return in the evening calms the mind while riding with colleagues at a pace that allows us to chat at the end of a busy workday. It’s truly one of the best ways to get exercise and stay healthy – good for the heart, good for the environment and, most importantly, good for the soul,” says Michaela Rossini, manager of the IIASA library and a co-organizer of Bike to Work Month at the institute.
For some staff members, one side benefit of cycling to IIASA is the beautiful sunrise along the Danube River ©Michaela Rossini | IIASA
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Mar 15, 2016 | Alumni, Environment, Young Scientists
By Carlijn Hendriks, Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) & IIASA Peccei award winner
Last summer, I participated in IIASA’s Young Scientist Summer Program, working with the Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases and Ecosystems Services and Management programs. My research focused on what impacts the EU climate and air quality policy could have on ground level ozone around the middle of this century. While clean air policies should help reduce the pollution that can lead to ozone formation, we found that that climate change and energy policies will still increase ozone concentrations and damage by mid-century, unless stricter air pollution measures are implemented.
Ozone forms through reactions of various pollutants and chemicals in the atmosphere – a process that speeds up at higher temperatures. © Damián Bakarcic via Flickr
Ozone at ground level is an air pollutant, causing health and ecosystem problems. It is also an important component of summer smog. Ozone is not emitted into the atmosphere directly, but is produced when volatile organic carbons are oxidized in the presence of nitrogen oxides and light. Nitrogen oxides are released into the atmosphere mainly as a result of combustion processes (like car engines and industry), while non-methane volatile organic carbons (NMVOCs) come in large part from vegetation, especially broad-leaf trees and some fast-growing crops.
Part of the EU energy policy is to stimulate the use of sustainable biomass as an energy source. This could lead to expansion of commercial bioenergy crop production in plantations and an increasing use of forests. While this may help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it will also increase NMVOC emissions. At the same time, EU air quality policies aim to reduce emissions of air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and man-made NMVOC. Because some steps in the ground level ozone formation process are driven by absorption of light and/or proceed faster with higher temperatures, climate change could lead to higher ground level ozone concentrations in the future.
The separate effects of these three trends on ground level ozone have been studied before, but the question remains: what will be the combined impact of a) an increase of bioenergy plantations, b) EU’s air quality policy and c) climate change on health and ecosystem damage from ground level ozone? And which of the trends is the most important? To answer these questions, I used three models to study two energy and air quality scenarios for Europe under current and possible future climate conditions.
Two energy scenarios calculated by the Price-Induced Market Equilibrium System (PRIMES) model form the basis of this work. We used a reference scenario and one in which Europe reaches 80% CO2 emission reduction in 2050. These energy scenarios were used as a basis to calculate air pollutant emissions with IIASA’s Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollution Interactions and Synergies (GAINS) model. Then we put the same scenarios into IIASA’s Global Biosphere Model GLOBIOM to obtain the change in land cover because of increasing bioenergy demand. I combined these datasets in chemistry transport model LOTOS-EUROS (the model of choice at my home institute, TNO) to calculate the impact on ground level ozone concentrations across Europe. To simulate ‘future climate’ we used the year 2003, in which Europe had a very warm summer, with temperatures 2-5 °C higher than normal.
Difference in average ozone concentration (in µg/m3) between the current situation and the 80% CO2 reduction scenario in 2050 under future climate change conditions for the period April-September. Negative numbers mean a decrease in ozone levels.
We found that especially for the CO2-reduction scenario, the increase in bioenergy production could cause a slight increase in ozone damage. However, the impact of reduced emissions because of more stringent air quality policies far outweighs this effect, leading to a net reduction of ozone damage. The third effect, more efficient ozone formation in a warming climate, is so strong that in 2050 ozone damage to human health could be worse than today, especially for northwestern Europe. Stringent air quality policies close to a maximum feasible reduction scenario would be needed to make sure that health and ecosystem damage towards the middle of the century is smaller than it is today.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Sep 24, 2015 | Air Pollution
© kichigin19 | dreamstime.com
By Jens Borken-Kleefeld, IIASA Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases Program
Earlier this week, Volkswagen admitted fraudulent software causing high exhaust emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from several of its diesel car models during normal driving. That diesel cars emit many times more NOx in normal driving than their legal limit has been known for more than a decade in Europe. The surprise to me is that the enforcement of these legal limits is pursued now from the USA and not from a European authority, and that – in the face of a public outcry – the automaker admitted the same software was not only in US models.
Following this announcement, I took a second look into the on-road emission data from Europe and compared it with data collected by colleagues in the USA. We find that VW diesel cars in Europe emit as much NOx as the incriminated models in the USA, as shown in the chart for VW Golf, Jetta and Passat models model years 2009 to 2013.
On-road data US: Peter McClintock, remote sensing campaign by Envirotest Inc. for Colorado (2013). On-road data Europe: Jens Borken-Kleefeld, analyzing remote sensing campaigns by AWEL Zurich (2009-2013). Each filtered for normal driving conditions.
We measured significant differences between manufacturers, yet on the whole the gap between officially certified and real-driving NOx emissions from diesel cars in Europe has been growing. The few models with low emissions are by far outnumbered by cars with high NOx emissions. Yet, VW’s emission levels are not even the worst in class.
References:
US EPA Notice of Violation, 18 Sept 2015. http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/cert/documents/vw-nov-caa-09-18-15.pdf
Announcement by VW: http://www.volkswagenag.com/content/vwcorp/info_center/en/news/2015/09/Volkswagen_AG_has_issued_the_following_information.html
Chen and J. Borken-Kleefeld, “Real-Driving Emissions from Cars and Light Commercial Vehicles – Results from 13 Years Remote Sensing at Zurich/CH,” Atmospheric Environment 88 (May 2014): 157–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.atmosenv.2014.01.040
Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
Feb 19, 2015 | Air Pollution
Fabian Wagner is a researcher in IIASA’s Mitigation of Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases (MAG) Program. He is currently on sabbatical as a visiting professor at Princeton University.
Fabian Wagner
Credit: Princeton University
What’s your role at Princeton?
I have a joint appointment with two institutions within the university, and one of my roles is to improve the communication between these: I am a visiting professor at the relatively young Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment (ACEE), and a visiting lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs (WWS). The ACEE is part of the engineering school, so there I mostly interact with engineers, while the WWS mostly hosts economics, lawyers, and political scientists. At WWS I am part of the Science, Technology and Environmental Policy (STEP) Program.
What’s a typical day for you at Princeton?
Over the year I am teaching a fair amount, more than the average Princeton faculty. That is, I am not doing a sabbatical in the usual sense of the word. I am basically constantly preparing lectures for courses I am teaching on energy technologies, the energy and water nexus, and energy policy. I am also supervising undergraduate and graduate students on their theses. During the semester there are more seminars, brown bag lunches and breakfasts than one can realistically attend.
How does your work at the university differ from your work at IIASA?
Here the projects I am involved in do not have strict deadlines: The next deadline is always the next lecture. The exceptions are the days by which grades need to be submitted. As a professor I advise students, but they go away and do their research themselves. It is fascinating to see how smart they are and how quickly they absorb ideas and can apply them. Oh, and I have no supervisor who guides what I do.
What do you miss about IIASA?
I miss the team spirit of the MAG group, and the more international outlook on issues. What I do not miss is the long commute from Vienna to Laxenburg—here I live on campus and can walk to either one of my offices in three minutes.
Princeton University campus. Credit: Princeton University
What are you doing at a university that you would not normally do at IIASA?
I attend a lot more seminars, and in general – because the work here is less funding-driven – there is a great deal of room for intellectual curiosity. I also work with corporate partners of the university. While at Princeton, I’m working with a local energy utility on a project to model the future electricity system and electricity market in New Jersey and neighboring states to support the further development of their Energy Master Plan.
Here I have a lot of freedom in deciding what projects to engage in and how to spend my time. In my experience Princeton is very open to cross-cutting activities. IIASA is small, so the number of approaches, methods and modes of thinking are limited. On the other hand, much of the work at Princeton is not so holistic and integrated as IIASA’s work, and some activities here lack a critical mass and long-term engagement.
When you come back to IIASA, what would you want to bring with you from your experience at Princeton?
The courses that I teach here are more on the turf of IIASA’s energy and water programs, so I hope to be able to interact with them more in the future. Also, in addition to the specific things I am learning I also hope to bring back some inspiration to IIASA colleagues to think about the value of changing perspectives from time to time, and about the space of possible career moves.
Note: This article gives the views of the interviewee, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
You must be logged in to post a comment.