Emissions Inventory Analysis of Mobile Source Air Pollution in Tel Aviv, Israel

Abstract

Air pollution from motor vehicles is an acute urban problem in many rapidly developing countries. Air quality monitoring in Israel has both demonstrated the severity of the problem in Israel and identified transportation emissions to be the major contributor to its etiology. Currently, a major concern is the high level of nitrogen oxide nonattainment in Tel Aviv. Thousands of nitrogen oxide violations are recorded there every year. This pollution both affects the local population and provides the driving factor behind the ozone formation downwind in Jerusalem and the West Bank. This paper presents the innovative effort to compile varying streams of data to create an urban vehicle emissions inventory for the city of Tel Aviv. The inventory provides an excellent understanding of the relative contributions of four air pollutants between and within each vehicle cluster. The major findings are that, of total urban vehicle emissions, cars purchased before 1993, when catalytic converters became mandatory, produce 60 percent of carbon monoxide and 55 percent of hydrocarbon emissions. City buses produce 67 percent of nitrogen oxide and 39 percent of particulate matter emissions. Trucks and taxis each contribute about an eighth of total nitrogen oxide and a quarter of total particulate matter emissions. The major policy direction suggested by these findings is diesel fleet vehicle mitigation. In short, an effective approach is presented for industrializing nations to quickly assess their mobile pollution sources, and the foundation data are compiled for further mobilesource analyses in Israel.

Nitrogen oxides and ozone in urban air: A review of 50 plus years of progress

“…27 T In Israel, nitrogen oxides in air have been a pollution problem for more than 20 years. 43,44 Tel Aviv, the largest metropolitan area often has concentrations that exceed target values. 43,44 Emissions from buses are one of the significant sources.…”

“…43,44 Tel Aviv, the largest metropolitan area often has concentrations that exceed target values. 43,44 Emissions from buses are one of the significant sources. Figure 3 shows the percentage of days that the ozone concentration is above 70 ppb for each city.…”

“…Air quality is an important global concern with annual costs of more than $4 trillion per year due to health costs and millions of people dying early because of illnesses associated with poor air quality 1‐63 . While particulate matter smaller than 2.5 μm in equivalent aerodynamic diameter, PM2.5, is the greatest health problem, nitrogen oxides, including nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen dioxide (NO 2 ), and mixtures of NO and NO 2 (NO x ) are very important as well because they impact health and contribute to ozone (O 3 ) formation.…”

Cumulative exposure to air pollution and long term outcomes after first acute myocardial infarction: A population-based cohort study. Objectives and methodology

“…Sulphur dioxide is emitted to the atmosphere mainly from industrial sources, in particular power plants. Nitrogen oxides are a product of combustion processes and in the study region are mostly associated with traffic-related emissions [ 27 ]. The concentrations of these two pollutants are not expected to be correlated, thereby providing independent measures of air pollution exposure [ 28 ].…”

Study on Comprehensive Assessment of Environmental Impact of Air Pollution

“…At the city scale, based on appropriate estimation methods and emission factors, Chinese scholars analyzed the mobile source emission inventories of Nanchang [23], Anyang [24], Lanzhou [25], Nanchong [26], Tianjin [27], and Changchun [28] in China. Foreign scholars studied the spatial variability and gradient of mobile source pollution emissions in Tehran (Iran) [29], Kansas (USA) [30], Tel Aviv (Israel) [31], Houston, Texas (USA) [32], Kansas (USA) [33], Denver (USA) [34], and other cities, and the contribution of mobile source pollution emissions to regional air pollution. In terms of fixed source research, Zhang [35], Wei [36], Tang [37] and others carried out relevant research on VOC, SO 2 , and NO 2 emissions from fixed sources based on chromatography technology, thermal analyzer gas chromatography combined technology, the Differential Optical Absorption Spectrum (DAOS), and other technologies.…”