The main challenge of organizing a multinational research team is ensuring proper communication. Therefore, clear task distribution and coordinating the activity of both partners is paramount.

Given that validating the dispersion model is heavily dependent on measurements of on-site air quality parameters, one of the main risks is reduced availability of the equipment, due to various malfunctions. To mitigate this risk, a relatively high amount of 30 % of total costs related to the Romanian partner is budgeted for equipment maintenance.

Another issue is the availability of data from local environmental monitoring agencies. This data will be used to clearly demonstrate the advantages of the new monitoring tool compared to the existing infrastructure. Before the proposal was submitted, these authorities were contacted, and they officially stated their support for the project.

Project management – (Task leader, I. Ionel, UPT and L. Soulhac, LMFA)

 Both French and Romanian teams will be coordinated by the principal investigators. Specific tasks will be established for different members of the research team so that all scientific, organisational and administrative issues are covered. Four meetings will be organised to ensure the project planning as well as to define the objective of each partners, and to report on the running activities. One meeting a year should allow efficient project coordination in addition to an initial reunion to start the project in good conditions. A short report will be also delivered to conclude each task of the project.

Task 1.a: Definition of objectives (Task leader: L. Soulhac)

Task 1.b: Coordination of actions (Task leader: I. Ionel)

Task 1.c: Reporting and meeting organisation (Task Leader: I. Ionel)

Preparation and Emission inventory – (Task leader, I. Ionel, UPT)

 Task 2.a. Preparation (Task leader, I. Ionel)

A thorough literature review will be required at the beginning of the project to ensure that all aspects covered by the proposal are state of the art. Travelling in the first months will be mostly required to ensure good coordination of the partners.

Task 2.b: Emissions inventory (Task leader, I. Ionel)

The second work package of this task is the construction of the emission inventory for the domain of Timisoara which will be simulated (task 4). The work will be done by the partners in Romania with the support of NUMTECH. The work will be mainly: to identify the main sources of emission over the city in regard to the specificity of Romania, that is to the identify the sources for which detailed information is needed; to gather information for these sources to perform emission calculation or gather existing emission database; realize emission calculation and construction of the emissions inventory.

Task 2.c: Meteorological measurements (Task leader, I. Ionel)

LIDAR measurements will be performed over the site of Timisoara so as to evaluate the frequency of unfavourable situations for pollutant dispersion like inversion cap.

Task 2.d: Definition of concentration measurement sites (Task leader, L. Soulhac)

The measurement sites and procedures will be defined during the preparation of the project so as to ensure a good coherence between the data required by the model and the experimental data set (measurement in the vicinity to the traffic or far from the traffic, etc.)

Development of a new version of SIRANE – (Task leader, L. Soulhac, LMFA)

The main objective of these investigations is to make Sirane able to manage air pollution over three kinds of terrain, open terrain, urban canopy made of street canyons, semi densely populated areas cover by separated blocks of habitations that are all represented in Timisoara.

Task 3a: Wind tunnel investigations (Task leader, P Salizzoni)

The wind tunnel investigations will be mainly performed to get estimations of the wind field over a street-half-canyon thanks to PIV measurements for 5 to 10 wind directions. It’s also proposed to consider traffic emissions from such a street by introducing a line source of a tracer gas and performing FID measurements all around the site. Those measurements will be performed in the atmospheric wind tunnel of Ecole Centrale de Lyon, France, whose test section is 12.0 m long, 3.8 m wide and 2.0 m high. The technical part of the wind tunnel measurements will be performed by research engineers from C-Innov, specialized in wind tunnel impact studies over industrial area and urban environment, anemometry and concentration measurements. The deliverable of Task 3.a will consist in two data bases: one for the wind field measurements and one for the concentration measurements.

Task 3b: Data analysis (Task Leader, P. Salizzoni)

Data collected during wind tunnel investigations will be analysed and processed so as to obtain parametric laws describing the wind field and particularly the mean wind speed in the street-half-canyon with respect to the incident wind direction. Those parametric laws are the deliverable of Task 3.b.

Task 3c: SIRANE developments (Task leader, L. Soulhac)

The development of a specific algorithm to model mass transfer of pollutant in street-half-canyon is proposed so that Sirane could be able to assess mass and momentum turbulent transfer in all typical street configuration particularly well represented in Timisoara. This task will consist in implementing the parametric laws directly deduced from the results obtained in Task 3a. It will require also adapting the entire model so as to ensure global compatibility of the existing modules with the new topographical configurations addressed by the model new version which includes:

•  Definition of a new topographical class for street discriminations

• New version of the algorithm ensuring fluid mass conservation in street intersections involving street-half-canyon

• New version of the algorithm ensuring pollutant mass conservation in street intersections involving street-half-canyon

• New geometrical design for street-half-canyon sources

The deliverable is the new version of the dispersion model SIRANE in operational configuration.

Data acquisition and Model validation (Task leader, I. Ionel, UPT)

Task 4.a: Measurement campaign (Task leader, F. Popescu)

This task will require data obtained through on-site measurements in the city of Timisoara of two kinds : fixed/permanent measurement network and mobile/specific measurement done during dedicated period. The Romanian partner is fully equipped with the infrastructure required for these measurements, as well as highly qualified personnel. An ISO CEI 17025:2005 compliant mobile laboratory (www.mediu.ro) ensures the monitoring of CO, NO, NO₂, O₃, PM, THC, NMHC, CH₄ and SO₂ concentrations.

Mobile Air Quality Monitoring station at “Politehnica” University from Timisoara Instrumentation setup.

 

 

Mobile Air Quality Monitoring station at “Politehnica” University from Timisoara.

Pollutants monitored and instruments used:

• CO, CO2 with ENVIRONNEMENT CO12M, ref. standard EN 14626:2005, NDIR principle
• SO2 with ENVIRONNEMENT AF21M, ref. standard EN 14212:2005, UV fluorescence principle (H2S unit by converting H2S to SO2, ENVIRONNEMENT CH2S)
• NO, NO2 and NOx with ENVIRONNEMENT AC31M, ref. standard EN 14211:2005 chemiluminiscence
• CH4, NMHC and THC with ENVIRONNEMENT AH41, ref. EN 12619:2002 and EN 13526:2002, Fame ionization principle
• Monitoring PM10, PM4, PM2.5 and PM1.0 concentrations in ambient air with TSI Dusttrack
• Monitoring PM10 and PM2.5 with LSV3 instrument
• Monitoring TSP with TEOM 1400A instrument.

The objectives to deploy mobile measurements can be multiple: gather information on identified areas required to validate more robustly or easily the modelling system (it can be for example a specific typology of area not covered by the permanent network, measurement inside/near road to validate the developments done in task 3) or to gather information in relation to background pollution. After a joint first analysis of the air-quality over Timisoara (based on expertise of the domain from the Romanian partner, existing or previous campaign of measurements, eventually first basic air-quality simulation), a roadmap about the measurement campaign will be constructed. Deliverables: Measurement data during one year from permanent network and over specific period with mobile measurements.

Task 4.b : Urban modelling and simulation (Task leader, F. Brocheton, NUMTECH)

In order to perform an air-quality simulation with the dispersion model developed in the taks 2, this requires obtaining data and integrating it inside the model:

•  An emission database to model the sources of pollutants in the model. We will use the emission inventory constructed in the task 2.b
•  The dispersion model SIRANE allows to take into account also the effects of the urban topography (air flow simulations in street canyon). We shall use the digital data available locally for the mean building elevations (under GIS format) around the main roads.
•  Meteorological data (wind speed and direction, temperature, precipitation rates cloudiness at hourly or three-hourly basis).
• Background concentration. According to the simulated domain and to the location of the permanent network of measurement stations, a methodology will be developed and applied to obtain such information on the basis of the expertise of French partners.

The work of modeling will be performed by NUMTECH with the support of Romania partners to gather all requested data to do that.

 Simulations will be performed for one year in relation to the measurement campaign done in task 4.a. The horizontal resolution for the meshing of the domain will typically of the order of 100-200 meters, with specific refining to gather information near and inside roads. Lastly, to the grid calculation, the air concentrations will be also calculated at specific points defined very exactly by their coordinates (x, y, z). These "virtual sensors" will correspond to the position of existing fixed measurements stations, the mobile station and the LIDAR for comparison studies.

Simulations will concern only urban dispersion of primary pollutants: NO_x/NO₂, PM10, PM2.5 and SO₂.

Deliverables: (i) a modelling system configured for a specific domain of Timisoara, and (ii) results of simulation over one year.

Task 4.c: Model validation (coordinator, I. Ionel, UPT)

There are two main objectives for this work package:

1. - Firstly, based on detailed comparisons between the simulations and the measurement of air-quality network and mobile station, an evaluation of the performance of the modeling system over the Timisoara domain. Focus will be done on the dispersion of pollutants from roads inside the city. Eventually, the comparisons will allow to adjust some parameters inside the model. The objective is to find the best configuration of the system for the studied area and then to have a system exclusive to Timisora. Influence of the emission inventory quality in the results will be studied here.
2. - Secondly, on the basis of simulation results performed with this system, to realize different maps of concentrations of pollutants in order to analyze the air-quality from annual basis, but also seasonal or daily trends. From these simulations, it will be then possible to some extent to identify the area of attainment or non-attainments of air quality areas, and, if possible, to identify the major contributing sources responsible to the non-attainments in order to develop strategies for future action plan to control air emissions.

 

Pollution map over a French city.

All concentrations maps will be surimposed on a map of the area under study using GIS and satellite imagery data. One example of NO_x map for the Toulon’s town (France) is illustrated above.

Deliverables : an analysis report about (i) the performance of the modeling system , and (ii) the air-quality over Timisoara (based on measurement and simulation) with illustration by maps.

Results dissemination

All results of research developed during within the project will be mainly disseminated through articles published in international scientific journals, as well as by participating at international conferences covering environmental issues and urban air quality. One or more workshops will also be organized to present the overall intermediate and final results obtained.

Task 5.a: Scientific communication and publications (coordinator, I. Ionel)

Task 5.b: Transfer to Romania (coordinator, I. Ionel)

This work-package is devoted to transfer the urban modelling system to Romania partners with a work to adapt the system for such use (light interface or simplification in the execution), including a specific training session as well as support from French partners to present the system to local and national authorities. Indeed, on the basis of the project over Timisoara, its results and the facility to achieve all tasks (that is to say gather information for the emission inventory, for the urban modelling, for measurements), conclusions will be derived to evaluate the possibility to apply the system over another cities.

Deliverables: A report on the possibility to apply the system to other cities in Romania.