Chapter 27
Potential Impact of a Low Emission Zone
on Street-Level Air Quality in Barcelona
City Using CALIOPE-Urban Model
Jaime Benavides, Albert Soret, Marc Guevara, Carlos Pérez-García Pando,
Michelle Snyder, Fulvio Amato, Xavier Querol and Oriol Jorba
Abstract Barcelona city (Spain) has a very high vehicle density (approx. 5500
vehicles km
−2 ) being the majority diesel (64%). Barcelona traffic stations report
chronic exceedances of nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) European annual regulatory limits
since the year 2000. In December 2017, a Low Emission Zone (LEZ) has been
implemented in Barcelona to restrict access to the ring-road area to gasoline-powered
passenger cars before 2000, diesel passenger cars before 2006 and vans before Euro
1 (registered before 1994) during air pollution episodes. This policy is planned to
become permanent on December 2020. This work is an initial step towards evaluating
the impact of Barcelona LEZ on air quality using CALIOPE-Urban. CALIOPEUrban is a street-scale modelling system that couples CALIOPE air quality mesoscale
modelling system, which provides air quality forecasts at 1 km horizontal resolution
over Barcelona city, with R-LINE. Here we evaluate CALIOPE-Urban and assess
its sensitivity to structural reductions of NO x emissions. We evaluate the coupled
modeling system using observations from an experimental campaign in April to
May 2013 in Barcelona city.
27.1 Introduction
A 68% of Barcelona citizens were exposed in 2016 to NO 2 levels above the annual
limit [1]. To decrease the negative impact of air pollution on citizens health, Barcelona
municipality implemented last December 2017 a Low Emission Zone (LEZ) that
focus on its first stage on reducing NO 2 levels during air pollution episodes that are
expected to occur 2–3 times a year [4]. This policy is planned to become permanent
J. Benavides · A. Soret · M. Guevara · C. P.-G. Pando · O. Jorba (B)
Earth Sciences Department, Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: oriol.jorba@bsc.es
M. Snyder
Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
F. Amato · X. Querol
Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research, IDAEA-CSIC, Barcelona, Spain
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
C. Mensink et al. (eds.), Air Pollution Modeling and its Application XXVI,
Springer Proceedings in Complexity,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22055-6_27
171
Potential Impact of a Low Emission Zone
on Street-Level Air Quality in Barcelona
City Using CALIOPE-Urban Model
Jaime Benavides, Albert Soret, Marc Guevara, Carlos Pérez-García Pando,
Michelle Snyder, Fulvio Amato, Xavier Querol and Oriol Jorba
Abstract Barcelona city (Spain) has a very high vehicle density (approx. 5500
vehicles km
−2 ) being the majority diesel (64%). Barcelona traffic stations report
chronic exceedances of nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ) European annual regulatory limits
since the year 2000. In December 2017, a Low Emission Zone (LEZ) has been
implemented in Barcelona to restrict access to the ring-road area to gasoline-powered
passenger cars before 2000, diesel passenger cars before 2006 and vans before Euro
1 (registered before 1994) during air pollution episodes. This policy is planned to
become permanent on December 2020. This work is an initial step towards evaluating
the impact of Barcelona LEZ on air quality using CALIOPE-Urban. CALIOPEUrban is a street-scale modelling system that couples CALIOPE air quality mesoscale
modelling system, which provides air quality forecasts at 1 km horizontal resolution
over Barcelona city, with R-LINE. Here we evaluate CALIOPE-Urban and assess
its sensitivity to structural reductions of NO x emissions. We evaluate the coupled
modeling system using observations from an experimental campaign in April to
May 2013 in Barcelona city.
27.1 Introduction
A 68% of Barcelona citizens were exposed in 2016 to NO 2 levels above the annual
limit [1]. To decrease the negative impact of air pollution on citizens health, Barcelona
municipality implemented last December 2017 a Low Emission Zone (LEZ) that
focus on its first stage on reducing NO 2 levels during air pollution episodes that are
expected to occur 2–3 times a year [4]. This policy is planned to become permanent
J. Benavides · A. Soret · M. Guevara · C. P.-G. Pando · O. Jorba (B)
Earth Sciences Department, Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: oriol.jorba@bsc.es
M. Snyder
Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
F. Amato · X. Querol
Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research, IDAEA-CSIC, Barcelona, Spain
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
C. Mensink et al. (eds.), Air Pollution Modeling and its Application XXVI,
Springer Proceedings in Complexity,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22055-6_27
171