An analytical air pollution model : Development and evaluation

An analytical air quality dispersion model based on a discretization of the Planetary Boundary Layer in N sub-layers is presented. In each sub-layer the diffusion-advection equation is solved by the Laplace Transform techniques, considering an average value for the vertical exchange coefficient and the wind speed. This approach allows us to conjugate the advantages of the dispersion models based on analytical solutions and the more realistic wind and eddy diffusivity profiles related to a progress in the understanding of the Planetary Boundary Layer structure. The model's performances have been evaluated using the well-known Copenhagen dataset as well as the analytical model evaluating ground level concentrations from elevated sources (Tirabassi and Rizza, 1994). Then, the application of the statistical evaluation procedure (Hanna, 1989) over the outcoming results has shown that the proposed analytical dispersion model produces a good fitting of the observational data.