Identifying the contribution of different airport related sources to local urban air quality

The Air Quality Strategy and part IV of The Environment Act, within the United Kingdom, highlight the need for local authorities to undertake air quality assessments. Many UK local authorities have recently completed a review and assessment of local air quality, which has culminated in the declaration of Air Quality Management Areas (AQMAs) in many urban areas, where air pollution objectives are likely to be exceeded. Those local authorities who declare AQMAs are required to undertake a further stage of assessment, which involves the determination of the contribution of various sources of air pollution, such as airports. Many studies of this nature only consider an airport as one source, however, this study considers the impact of different airport related sources on local air quality from a dispersion modelling study of a large urban area. This paper describes the methodology, results and draws conclusions from a study that assesses the impact of a regional airport’s sources (such as it’s contribution from road traffic and aircraft). The paper also considers the effect of modelling the above ground aircraft emissions sources (climbout and approach) to different altitude heights. The paper’s results highlight the need to investigate the source contributions of an airport, to local air quality, as opposed to considering an airport as just one source.