Optimal design of air quality monitoring network around an oil refinery plant: a holistic approach

Abstract

In this study, a multi-objective method for allocating the number and configuration of an air quality monitoring network based on non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II has been presented. The multiple cell approach based on the solution of an Eulerian Model built on K-theory was used to predict the dispersion of emitted pollutants (SO 2 , CO, NO x ) from different emission sources. The multi-objective optimization method proposed in this study utilized two objectives: (1) maximum coverage area with respect to continuity of covered area and minimum overlap among coverage areas and (2) detection of violations over ambient standards. The concept of sphere of influence was used to determine the spatial area coverage of the monitoring station, and a weighing function was employed to measure the capability of a designed network to detect violations of air quality standards. The results show that three stations are suitable for the study region with coverage efficiency of 80 %. Analyzing the effect of cutoff correlation coefficient r c shows that, when the r c increases, although the coverage area decreases, the covered region will be well represented and overlap region will decrease.

Optimal Design of Air Quality Monitoring Network and its Application in an Oil Refinery Plant: An Approach to Keep Health Satus of Workers

“…The selection of the threshold values ( TR ) varies depending on the case-by-case situation, like budget constraints, regional environmental regulations, meteorological condition and the purpose of the monitoring network. 4 , 7 , 14 The results show that as the threshold value increased from 1 to 10, the network efficiency increased and reached the value of 0.99. For the higher value of threshold, the required monitoring stations decrease with increasing threshold value.…”

“…Several pollutants are synergistic and therefore it is mandatory to measure different pollutants at a common site. 7 , 9 Given the mentioned facts, two suggestions can be made in the future studies: adding additional objectives to optimization procedure and reduction of uncertainties.…”

“…This broad goal has produced broad objectives, among which are the typical objectives reported by WHO, and are considered for industrial plants. 7 They are determining compliance with national or international standards, developing policies and setting priorities for management actions, and developing and validating management tools such as models and geographical information systems. 8 , 9 Generally the objectives of AQMN can be summarized in the terms of spatial representatively (i.e.…”

Efficient Sensor Deployments for Spatio-Temporal Environmental Monitoring

“…Likewise, the work [10] proposed to utilize the genetic programming to design a network of wells to identify unknown pollution sources in aquifers. To efficiently monitor air quality, while [5] designs a network of stations so that variance of gauged pollution concentrations is maximized, the optimal site network in [6] is relied upon ratio of an individual station concentration to the total of the network. A number of issues to design a network of monitoring extreme values are addressed in [25].…”

Emission patterns of acrylonitrile and styrene around an industrial wastewater treatment plant in Iran

“…Wind velocity and direction as well as the air temperature are the meteorological parameters that impose significant effect on the distribution of pollutants (Zoroufchi Benis and Fatehifar 2015). The study area wind rose in yearly period is presented in Fig.…”