DIMIZA: A DISPERSION MODELING BASED IMPACT ZONE ASSESSMENT OF MERCURY (HG) EMISSIONS FROM COAL-FIRED POWER PLANTS AND RISK EVALUATION FOR INHALATION EXPOSURE
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Date
2021
Authors
Karaca, Ferhat
Kumisbek, Aiganym
Inglezakis, Vassilis J.
Azat, Seitkhan
Zhakiyenova, Almagul
Ormanova, Gulden
Guney, Mert
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Engineering Reports
Abstract
Coal-fired combined heat and power plants (CHPPs) serving large districts areamong the major sources of mercury (Hg) emissions globally, including Cen-tral Asia. Most CHPPs reside on the outskirts of urban areas, thus creating riskzones. The impact of atmospheric Hg levels on health is complex to establishdue to the site-specific nature of the relationship between CHPP emissions andhotspots (i.e., localized areas where Hg concentrations greatly exceed its back-ground value). However, a methodological identification of “emission impactzones” for atmospheric Hg emissions from CHPPs with potential adverse publichealth outcomes has not yet been fully studied. The present work suggests aneasy-to-use and cost-free impact zone identification method based on HYSPLITdispersion modeling for atmospheric Hg emissions from CHPPs. The dispersionmodeling based impact zone assessment, DiMIZA, merges short-term disper-sion runs (e.g., hourly) into long-term emission impacts (e.g., yearly), whichallows to identify the source impact zones. To perform a case study using thesuggested method, a CHPP plant in Nur-Sultan (capital of Kazakhstan) wasselected. First, traditional ad-hoc measurements were performed to identify thelevel of dispersions at ground level in different atmospheric stability character-istics. Then, HYSPLIT dispersion model was run for the same days and timesof those particular periods when the field measurements were performed. Themodel results were evaluated via a comparison with the ground measurementsand assessed for their atmospheric stability and diel conditions. Due to differ-ent emission loads in heating and non-heating periods, two separate pairs ofimpact zone maps were generated, and public Hg exposure health risks (acuteand chronic) were assessed.
Description
Keywords
Type of access: Open Access, air pollution, atmospheric modeling, atmospheric pollution, coal combustion, human health, HYSPLIT, public health, risk characterization
Citation
Karaca, F., Kumisbek, A., Inglezakis, V. J., Azat, S., Zhakiyenova, A., Ormanova, G., & Guney, M. (2020). DiMIZA : A dispersion modeling based impact zone assessment of mercury (Hg) emissions from coal‐fired power plants and risk evaluation for inhalation exposure. Engineering Reports, 3(7). https://doi.org/10.1002/eng2.12357