Practical use of the ISCST3 model to select monitoring site locations for air pollution control

Abstract

We present an objective methodology for selection of the minimum number of sampling sites required to register the highest concentration values of air pollutants emitted from a continuous point source. The methodology is based on the analysis of 1 hour concentration values above a threshold value estimated by atmospheric dispersion models. The number and location of the air monitoring stations are determined according to the likelihood that a station can measure high concentration values in accordance with model results. The efficiency of the monitoring network design depends on the accuracy of the considered dispersion model, a low inter-annual variability of atmospheric conditions and the number of samplers. Following a brief description of the methodology we detail an application to design an air monitoring network. We apply the ISCST3 atmospheric dispersion model to a point source emission, considering one year of hourly meteorological data. In this example, an approximated va1ue of the efficiency of the network design is 0.475 at best.