The purpose of this study was to perform an indoor air quality (IAQ) investigation at the Center for Applied Reproductive Science (CARS) to assess whether VOCs exist at levels dangerous to embryo. Formaldehyde, n-hexane, benzene, and styrene concentrations were measured at six locations. Formaldehyde concentrations were comparable to office and residential indoor air. N-hexane, benzene, and styrene were not detected. In addition, acetaldehyde, ethanol, and isopropyl alcohol were detected. IAQ parameters (carbon dioxide, temperature, humidity, pressure, and particulates) were measured at 22 sites monthly for one year. Temperature and humidity readings were within Environmental Protection Agency recommendations. Particulate concentrations were below Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards. Pressure readings indicated the facility was under a negative pressure. Carbon dioxide concentrations exceeded recommendations established by American Society for Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). Recommendations include assessing air intakes to assure dampers are adjusted to allow 15 ft3/min/person of fresh air established by ASHRAE.

This work aims to figure out the history and footpath of the trials and combats against VOCs emission in China. As China is a country that overlooked the environmental problems for decades (e.g. VOCs emissions), China’s environmental management system has not been mature and well-functioned towards current severe environmental pollution over China. Hence, a sounder and more flexible system for controlling VOCs emission from industry should be built up, urgently. This paper also attempts to come up with some reasonable and practical suggestions for improvement of the environmental management system with inspiration from European countries and markets. In this paper, “management system” and “treatment technology” in China are both options that will be explored thoroughly. Desktop research and interviewing are the major means of investigation. As to some research on management system, China’s national policies, provincial policies, emission standards, etc. are investigated; in addition, on-going treatment technology in China by enterprises and companies are also explored, with a summary of VOCs recovery and treatment techniques. European countries are explored as pioneers and models for treatment of VOCs emission. By learning some technology created and applied in EU markets, Chinese market can also be inspired and introduced. After that, some analysis on China’s VOCs management system coming from several aspects, i.e. governance dilemma, technology application, economic initiative and public participation, is made. Finally, some recommendation for management policies and technology application have been proposed as well, as a result of this study on VOCs emission for China’s authorities. / Det här arbetet syftar till att ta reda på historien och gången i försöken och bekämpa utsläpp av VOC i Kina. Eftersom Kina är ett land som förbisedde miljöproblemen i årtionden (t ex VOC-utsläpp) har Kinas miljöledningssystem inte varit moget och välfungerat mot nuvarande allvarlig miljöföroreningar över Kina. Därför bör ett kraftigare och mer flexibelt system för kontroll av VOC-utsläpp från industrin byggas upp, snabbt. I detta försök försöker man också få fram några rimliga och praktiska förslag till förbättring av miljöledningssystemet med inspiration från europeiska länder och marknader. I detta dokument är "management system" och "behandlingsteknik" i Kina båda grenar som kommer att undersökas noggrant. Skrivbordsundersökningar och intervjuer är viktiga medel för undersökning. När det gäller viss forskning om ledningssystemet undersöks Kinas nationella politik, provinspolitik, utsläppsstandarder etc. Dessutom har även pågående behandlingsteknik i Kina av företag och företag utforskats, med en sammanfattning av VOCs återvinnings- och behandlingstekniker. Europeiska länder har utforskats som pionjärer och modeller för behandling av VOC-utsläpp. Genom att lära sig någon teknik som skapats och tillämpas på EU-marknader kan den kinesiska marknaden också inspireras och introduceras. Slutligen har man också föreslagit en del rekommendationer om förvaltningspolitik och teknikansökan, som en följd av denna studie om utsläpp av VOC i både Kina och Europa.

Airborne particulate matter (PM) in urban areas is derived from a combination of natural and anthropogenic sources. To identify PM sources and their effects on air quality, we collected PM using active filter samplers over a two-year period in the urban Wasatch Front, northern Utah, an area affected by multiple pollution sources. Filters from active samplers and other PM samples were analyzed for major and trace element concentrations and 87Sr/86Sr ratios. We identified wind-blown mineral dust from dry lake beds, winter inversions, and fireworks as primary PM sources affecting air quality in the Wasatch Front. Dust contributes Al, Be, Ca, Co, Cs, Fe, Li, Mg, Mn, Rb, Th, U, Y, and REEs which are typical components of carbonate and silicate minerals. Winter inversions entrap As, Cd, Mo, Pb, Sb, Tl, and Zn from brake dust, combustion engine exhaust, and refining processes. Concentrations of common components of fireworks Ba, Cu, K, and Sr greatly increase (>4 times) during holidays. Strontium released from fireworks has a distinct 87Sr/86Sr ratio that dominates the isotopic composition of PM during holidays. Fireworks have 87Sr/86Sr ratios of <0.7080 compared with 0.7100 for Sevier Dry Lake and 0.7150 for Great Salt Lake lakebed. Sources of particulate matter vary seasonally. Dust events dominate the air quality signature during spring and summer while winter inversions occur from November through February. Transport of PM to mountain snowpack negatively affect water quality. This is the first study to describe variations in multiple PM sources and their potential health effects in Utah, USA

With substantial health and economic impacts attached to many highway-related projects, it has become imperative that the models used to assess air quality be as accurate as possible. The United States (US) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently promulgates the use of CAL3QHC to model concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) near roadway intersections. This model uses steady-state and macroscopic methods to model the physical phenomena (e.g., emission rates, atmospheric dispersion, etc.) occurring at intersections. These methods are not straightforward and unintuitive for the users. Therefore, this project investigated the possibility of developing a model that is theoretically more realistic and flexible than CAL3QHC. The new model entitled, Traffic Air Quality Simulation Model (TRAQSIM), uses a microscopic approach by modeling vehicle movements and dispersion in a simulation environment. Instead of steady-state plume equations used in the CAL3QHC model, TRAQSIM uses a discrete puff methodology that can be used to model time-based dispersion of pollutants. Most of the components incorporated into TRAQSIM have been drawn from existing methodologies and therefore, are not new. However, the combination of these different methods into a single integrated model is new and presents a novel approach to such a model. Initial verification and sensitivity/trend studies of the model indicate that TRAQSIM uses reasonable/realistic traffic parameters and behaves intuitively correct. A validation study showed that TRAQSIM produces good results when compared to actual measured data with an overall R2 value of 0.605 for 11 scenarios comprising 264 data points. Although most statistical parameters showed CAL3QHC agrees better overall with measured data (R2 value of 0.721), the comparisons were mixed on a scenario-by-scenario basis; that is, CAL3QHC showed better results for 6 scenarios and TRAQSIM showed better results for 5 scenarios. Additional tests with larger datasets, which were beyond the scope of this work, could be conducted to obtain more definitive conclusions and allow further development of TRAQSIM. While CAL3QHC is a mature model that has been developed over many years, TRAQSIM is new and has much more potential for improvement. The physical parameters used in TRAQSIM allow it to be more directly (more logically) improved than the approximations used in CAL3QHC. In addition, although the fundamental-level modeling in TRAQSIM make it a more complex model internally, it is much more intuitive for the user to understand and use.

One of the major sources of air pollution in the United States metropolitan areas is due to automobiles. With the huge growth of motor vehicles and, greater dependence on them, air pollution problems have been aggravated. According to the EPA, nearly 95% of carbon monoxide (CO ) (EPA 1999) in urban areas comes from mobile sources, of which 51% is contributed by on road vehicles. It is well known fact that, carbon monoxide is one of the major mobile source pollutants and CO has detrimental effects on the human health. Carbon monoxide is the result of mainly incomplete combustion of gasoline in motor vehicles (FDOT 1996). The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) gives important considerations to the actions to be taken. Transportation conformity . The Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA, 1970) was an important step in meeting the National Ambient Air Quality Standards In order to evaluate the effects of CO and Particulate Matter (PM) impacts based on the criteria for NAAQS standards, it is necessary to conduct dispersion modeling of emissions for mobile source emissions. Design of transportation engineering systems (roadway design) should take care of both the flow of the traffic as well as the air pollution aspects involved. Roadway projects need to conform to the State Implementation Plan (SIP) and meet the NAAQS. EPA guidelines for air quality modeling on such roadway intersections recommend the use of CAL3QHC. The model has embedded in it CALINE 3.0 (Benson 1979) – a line source dispersion model based on the Gaussian equation. The model requires parameters with respect to the roadway geometry, fleet volume, averaging time, surface roughness, emission factors, etc. The CAL3QHC model is a DOS based model which requires the modeling parameters to be fed into an input file. The creation of input the file is a tedious job. Previous work at UCF, resulted in the development of CALQVIEW, which expedites this process of creating input files, but the task of extracting the coordinates still has to be done manually. The main aim of the thesis is to reduce the analysis time for modeling emissions from roadway intersections, by expediting the process of extracting the coordinates required for the CAL3QHC model. Normally, transportation engineers design and model intersections for the traffic flow utilizing tools such as AutoCAD, Microstation etc. This thesis was to develop advanced software allowing graphical editing and coordinates capturing from an AutoCAD file. This software was named as CALQCAD. This advanced version will enable the air quality analyst to capture the coordinates from an AutoCAD 2004 file. This should expedite the process of modeling intersections and decrease analyst time from a few days to few hours. The model helps to assure the air quality analyst to retain accuracy during the modeling process. The idea to create the standalone interface was to give the AutoCAD user full functionality of AutoCAD tools in case editing is required to the main drawing. It also provides the modeler with a separate graphical user interface (GUI).

Air quality has been a major environmental concern for many years. Recently the issue of airport emissions has presented growing concerns and is being studied in much more depth. Airport emissions come from a variety of point, line and area sources, making emissions modeling for airports very complex and more involved. Accurate air quality models, specific to airport needs, are required to properly analyze this complex array of air pollution sources created by airports. Accurate air quality models are needed to plan for increased growth of current airports and address concerns over proposed new ones. The Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Emissions and Dispersion Modeling System (EDMS) is a program that is the required model for assessing emissions from airport sources. This research used EDMS Version 4.21, which incorporates the EPA dispersion model AERMOD, to model detailed airport data and compare the model's predicted values to the actual measured carbon monoxide concentrations at 25 locations at a major U.S. airport. Statistics relating the model characteristics as well as trends are presented. In this way, a thorough investigation of the accuracy of the EDMS modeled values of carbon monoxide was possible. EDMS modeling included two scenarios, the first scenario referred to as practice detail included general airport information that a modeler could find from the airport being studied and the second scenario referred to as research detail utilized very detailed information from observer logs during a three day observation period. Each of the modeling scenarios was compared to the field measured data and to each other. These comparisons are important to insure the model is adequately describing emissions sources at airports. Data analysis of this study was disappointing since measured levels of CO were generally higher than modeled values. Since EDMS is continually changing and improving perhaps these results can help enhance future models.

There is a growing public concern that emissions of mobile source air toxics (MSATs) from motor vehicles may pose a threat to human health. At present, no state or federal agencies require dispersion modeling of these compounds, but many agencies are concerned about potential future requirements. Current air pollution professionals are familiar with Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requirements for dispersion modeling to produce predicted concentrations for comparison with appropriate standards. This research examined a method in which the potential near-road concentrations of MSATs were calculated. It was believed that by assessing MSATs in much the same way that are used for other pollutants, the model and methods developed in this research could become a standard for those quantifying MSAT concentrations near-roadways. This dissertation reports on the results from short-term (1-hour) and long-term (annual average) MSATs dispersion modeling that has been conducted on seven intersections and seven freeway segments in the state of Florida. To accomplish the modeling, the CAL3QHC model was modified to handle individual MSAT emissions input data and to predict the concentrations of several MSATs around these roadway facilities. Additionally, since the CAL3MSAT model is DOS based and not user-friendly, time was invested to develop a Windows® graphical user interface (GUI). Real-world data (traffic volumes and site geometry) were gathered, worst-case meteorology was selected, mobile source emission factors (EFs) were obtained from MOVES2010a, and worst-case modeling was conducted. Based on a literature search, maximum acceptable concentrations (MACs) were proposed for comparison with the modeled results, for both a short-term (1-hour) averaging time and a long-term (1-year) averaging time. iv Results from this CAL3MSAT modeling study indicate that for all of the intersections and freeway segments, the worst-case 1-hour modeled concentrations of the MSATs were several orders of magnitude below the proposed short-term MACs. The worst-case 1-year modeled concentrations were of the same order of magnitude as the proposed long-term MACs. The 1-year concentrations were first developed by applying a persistence factor to the worst-case 1-hour concentrations. In the interest of comparing the predicted concentrations from the CAL3MSAT persistence factor approach to other dispersion models, two EPA regulatory models (CAL3QHCR and AERMOD) with the ability to account for yearly meteorology, traffic, and signal timing were used. Both hourly and annual MSAT concentrations were predicted at one large urban intersection and compared for the three different dispersion models. The shortterm 1-hour results from CAL3MSAT were higher than those predicted by the two other models due to the worst-case assumptions. Similarly, results indicate that the CAL3MSAT persistence factor approach predicted a worst-case annual average concentration on the same order of magnitude as the two other more refined models. This indicated that the CAL3MSAT model might be useful as a worst-case screening approach.

Yes / Air pollution has been integrated into global challenges over the last few years due to its negative impact on the health of human beings, increasing socio-economic risks and its contribution to climate change. This study attempts to evaluate the current status of Iran's air pollution with regard to the sources of emissions, control policies, as well as the health and climate consequences that have resulted through available data from monitoring stations reported in the literature, official documents and previous published papers. Many large cities in Iran surpass the permissible concentration of air pollutants, particularly particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, black carbon and ozone. Although regulations and policies are in place and enormous efforts are being made to address air pollution issues in the country, implementation and enforcement are not as effective as they could be. The significant challenges may be regarded as the inefficiency of regulation and supervision systems, the lack of air quality monitoring systems and technology, particularly in industrial cities rather than Tehran as well as the lack of continual feedback and investigations on the efficiency of regulation. Providing such an up-to-date report can bring opportunities for international collaboration, which is essential in addressing the air pollution worldwide. We suggest that a way forward could be more focused on conducting systematic reviews using scientometric methods to show an accurate picture and trend in air pollution and its association in Iran, implementing an integrated approach for both climate change and air pollution issues, collaborating with international counterparts to share knowledge, tools, and techniques.

The Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) is a 10-point scale that communicates the cumulative health risks associated with air pollution (ECCC, 2016). The general theme of this dissertation centers on an understanding of AQHI adoption while accounting for socioeconomic status (SES) in order to facilitate AQHI uptake by the public with particular focus on “at risk” populations (i.e. young children, seniors, and those with pre-existing respiratory and/or cardiovascular conditions). The study is unique since it approaches AQHI adoption consistent with the ecological model and an equity lens, and AQHI adoption is considered at the individual, organizational and community levels. The study area for this dissertation is Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The findings from this dissertation contribute to an understanding of why AQHI is or is not being adopted and suggests potential intervention strategies to increase its uptake. Consistent with health behaviour theory, demographics (gender, age, education, area of residence), knowledge/understanding and individual risk perceptions (neighbourhood air effects on health) were found to be significant predictors of AQHI adoption. Additionally, perceived benefits of AQHI adoption included protection of health for self and those cared for via familial and/or occupational duties. While perceived barriers of AQHI adoption included lack of time required to check and follow AQHI health messages and the inability to “self-identify” as belonging to the “at risk” population. This dissertation proposes that increases in AQHI adoption may be achieved by increasing AQHI knowledge and emphasizing the benefits and relevance of AQHI such that “at risk” populations can self-identify. Additionally, AQHI uptake may be increased by providing AQHI information at a neighbourhood scale via local media sources and wearable devices. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Transportation is embedded in the fabric of society and a key enabler of socio-economic development, but it is also a major source of carbon dioxide (CO2) and local air pollution (AP). Cities collectively account for around three quarters of total energy-related CO2 emissions, and the negative health impacts from local APs are most felt in dense urban environments. Thus, transitioning away from current fossil fuel regime in urban transportation is necessary to address both global and local challenges. Mathematical models as energy system optimisation models (ESOMs) are commonly applied to explore contrasting energy futures and to provide insights on how the energy system (or specific sub-sectors) may evolve under different conditions. However, ‘typical’ national level models are not fully adapted to capture the characteristics of local (city) transportation, and previous city-level ESOM based analyses have focused on decarbonisation of local energy systems, thus omitting other local policy considerations as e.g. air quality, and several studies excluded transportation altogether.  In this thesis, a generic city-level ESOM framework (TIMES-City) was further adapted and used to provide policy-relevant insights on the anticipated energy transition of the local transport sector. The underlying work rests on a systems analysis approach, building on careful consideration of the overall system performance and boundaries, understanding of specific system characteristics, and challenges and opportunities facing local ‘system managers’; this has implications for model representation and for quantitative and qualitative modelling assumptions. Further, availability and quality of local transport, energy and emission data needed to calibrate models poses significant challenges, and considerable effort was also put on producing projections for future transport demand (a key model input), using lessons and input data from traditional transport demand models. These considerations were addressed in Paper I.  The model was then applied to two different cases (in Sweden) to explore potential conflicts and co-benefits between ambitious climate targets and deep cuts in APs (Paper II), and to assess the roles of local and regional governments in CO2 mitigation when also considering ambitious national-scale policies (Paper III). The results of Paper II indicate that substituting fossil fuels for biofuels in conventional vehicles is the least-cost decarbonisation pathway, however this produces only minor or even negative benefits to air quality. While, zero-emission vehicles cut all local tail-pipe emissions, but their total impact on climate change mitigation is determined by upstream impacts from the conversion and distribution of energy carriers. Thus, ensuring low levels of total CO2 and APs from transportation calls for re-coupling of the local and global responsibilities and motivations into comprehensive mitigation strategies. The results of Paper III indicate that current Swedish national mitigation measures will drive down CO2 emissions in transportation considerably, but biofuel availability and BEV (battery electric vehicles) costs are critical for the rate and extent of the transition, while locally and regionally determined measures to enable shifts (from car) to active travelling, public transportation and home-based work have a much more limited direct impact. Nonetheless, these measures, along with city investments in BEVs and charging infrastructure which pave the way also for residents and local businesses, can help to reduce overall energy intensity of the transport sector, thus slowing down growth in fuel demand and contribute to reaching ambitious climate targets with limited renewable resources (as e.g. biofuels). The two studies (Papers II and III) illustrate the usefulness of applying comprehensive ESOMs also at sub-national levels, providing insights on both global and local sustainability implications as well as deeper understanding of the roles of local and regional decision-makers in enabling and supporting low-carbon transitions in transportation.