ACRP Research Report 179: Dispersion Modeling Guidance for Airports Addressing Local Air Quality Health Concerns
Abstract
ACRP Research Report 179 provides guidance for selecting and applying dispersion models to study local air quality health impacts resulting from airport-related emissions. The report should be of particular interest to airport environmental practitioners and regulators who wish to learn about the unique challenges associated with modeling emissions in an airport setting for the purposes of understanding their potential impacts on human health.This guidance document includes a primer on airport air quality and dispersion modeling, a decision matrix to help practitioners select the most appropriate modeling approach based on research needs, and guidance on how to approach an airport air quality study that requires dispersion modeling. Recognizing that the state of the practice would benefit from additional investigation, the guidance document also identifies areas of further research to improve dispersion models, with specific focus on the unique characteristics of aircraft sources compared to other source types.