Journal of Environmental Management 90 (2009) 23932401

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Journal of Environmental Management

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The use of an atmospheric dispersion model to determine inuence regions in the

Prince George, B.C. airshed from the burning of open wood waste piles
B. Ainslie*, P.L. Jackson
Environmental Science & Engineering Programs, The University of Northern British Columbia, 3333 University Way, Prince George, B.C., Canada V2N 4Z9

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A means of determining air emission source regions adversely inuencing the city of Prince George,
Received 27 September 2008 British Columbia, Canada from potential burning of isolated piles of mountain pine beetle-killed lodge
Received in revised form pole pine is presented. The analysis uses the CALPUFF atmospheric dispersion model to identify safe
5 November 2008
burning regions based on atmospheric stability and wind direction. Model results show that the location
Accepted 22 November 2008
and extent of inuence regions is sensitive to wind speed, wind direction, atmospheric stability and
Available online 19 March 2009
a threshold used to quantify excessive concentrations. A concentration threshold based on the Canada
Wide PM2.5 Standard is used to delineate the inuence regions while Environment Canadas (EC) daily
Keywords:
Airshed ventilation index (VI) is used to quantify local atmospheric stability. Results from the analysis, to be used
CALPUFF by air quality meteorologists in assessing daily requests for burning permits, are presented as a series of
Inuence region maps delineating acceptable burning locations for sources placed at various distances from the city
Dispersion modeling center and under different ventilation conditions. The results show that no burning should be allowed
within 10 km of the city center; under poor ventilation conditions, no burning should be allowed within
20 km of the city center; under good ventilation conditions, burning can be allowed within 1015 km of
the city center; under good to fair ventilation conditions, burning can be allowed beyond 15 km of the
city center; and if the wind direction can be reliably forecast, burning can be allowed between 5 and
10 km downwind of the city center under good ventilation conditions.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
In recent years infestation by the mountain pine beetle (Den-
droctonus ponderosae) (MPB) has killed millions of acres of mature
stands of lodgepole pine in the central interior of British Columbia,
Canada. While some of the resulting infected timber is commer-
cially salvageable, a large amount of the MBP-affected timber is not
and poses a forest re risk. In and around the city of Prince George,
British Columbia, Canada, this beetle-killed timber has become
increasingly difcult for public agencies and private individuals to
manage. As a result, it is proposed that some of this debris be cut
and burned in small (100 m2) isolated piles. Of concern is
the potential impacts such burning would have on air quality in the
populated part of the city, which already records some of the
highest PM2.5 levels in the province (B.C. Ministry of Water, Land
and Air Protection, 2003). Consequently, burning must be restricted
* Corresponding author. Environmental Science & Engineering Programs, The
University of Northern British Columbia, Prince George, B.C., Canada V2N 4Z9. Tel.:
1 604 822 5800.
E-mail address: ainslie@unbc.ca (B. Ainslie).
to areas where emissions will not negatively impact the heavily
populated areas.
Thus, what is needed, is a way to delineate the local airshed in
terms of air masses which do not inuence air quality in the city of
Prince George. It must be kept in mind that an airshed is not a xed
geographical entity like a watershed, and to the extent that an
airshed can be dened, it must, at a minimum be dependent on: the
pollutant of interest; meteorological conditions; emission source
locations; and emission rates. It also depends on a dening,
threshold attribute like concentration level (Copeland et al., 2004),
deposition load (Dennis and Mathur, 2001) or an inter-station
correlation level between regional monitoring stations (Civerolo
et al., 2003). Furthermore, two different reference frames can be
used to identify an airshed: a source-oriented frame and a receptor-
oriented frame. In the rst reference frame, an airshed boundary is
dened as those areas affected by emissions from sources within
the airshed whereas in the second approach, outside sources are
used to dene those regions which inuence a receptor site.
Different analytical techniques have been used to delineate
airsheds using a variety of denitions and both reference frames.
Civerolo et al. (2003) identify an ozone airshed around Pittsburgh
Pa., by examining monitoring stations whose ozone timeseries

0301-4797/$ see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2008.11.009
2394 B. Ainslie, P.L. Jackson / Journal of Environmental Management 90 (2009) 23932401
show high correlations with Pittsburghs. Such an analysis requires
a sufcient density of monitoring stations extending within and
outside of the airshed. This analysis also requires meteorological
and air quality observations over a sufciently long period of time
in order to capture natural meteorological variability and changing
emission rates. For the Prince George airshed, the monitoring
network is spatially too sparse, especially away from the developed
areas, for this approach to be practical.
Brankov et al. (1998) use a clustering analysis of 3-day back-
trajectories, calculated from coarse (180 km) gridded model output,
to infer regions which inuence ozone concentrations at different
monitoring sites in the Northeast U.S. Forward trajectories were
used in the Civerolo et al. (2003) airshed analysis to identify regions
impacted by emissions from large urban centers. Starting from both
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, daily 1-day forward trajectories over 5
summertime periods were used to identify regions impacted by 1-
day transport from the two cities. While both these trajectory
analyses are well suited to the identication of regional scale air-
sheds, at the local scale such a method requires high-resolution
gridded wind elds which are expensive to produce over extended
time periods.
Probably the most comprehensive way of quantitatively
analyzing an airshed boundary involves the use of high-resolution
numerical weather prediction model coupled with either a disper-
sion model or a 3-D chemical transport mechanism. Dennis and
Mathur (2001) use a modied version of the Regional Acid Depo-
sition Model (Stockwell et al., 1990) to dene the airshed associated
with nitrogen deposition in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. They
model deposition rates from sources around the Chesapeake Bay
watershed to calculate deposition rates for each source. They then
normalize the modeled deposition rates from each source using
that sources domain deposition total. Contours of equal normal-
ized deposition rates from all of the sources are then used to
identify what they call the principle airshed. Because this method
is computationally intensive, only 30 5-day simulations, identied
using a clustering analysis of typical wind ow patterns, were
modeled. Civerolo et al. (2003) used the RAMS meso-scale model
(Pielke et al., 1992) along with the Urban Airshed chemical trans-
port model to identify airshed boundaries surrounding the cities of
Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The analysis uses the differences in
modeled predicted concentrations between a base case run and
runs with the urban anthropogenic emissions turned off, to identify
those surrounding regions whose ozone concentrations are directly
affected by the urban emissions. Again, because of the signicant
computational effort involved, the modeling covered only the 1995
summer season.
At the local scale, Copeland et al. (2004) use a four dimensional
data assimilation system and the MM5 meso-scale model (Dudhia,
1993) to develop high-resolution (500 m) wind elds used to drive
a transport and diffusion model. Results are used to calculate areas
around building from where atmospheric releases have the
potential to inuence building concentrations (so called threat
zones). The use of high-resolution meso-scale modeling is not
feasible for the current application.
A smoke dispersion forecast system (ClearSky) has been devel-
oped for management of agricultural eld burning in the Pacic
Northwest (Jain et al., 2007). Daily MM5 meso-scale model output
at 4 km is used as input to the CALMET diagnostic wind eld
generator (Scire et al., 2000). Event-specic emission elds are
generated through consultation with a database of local eld and
crop conditions. The emission elds are then used with the CALMET
wind elds to drive the CALPUFF (Scire et al., 1999) dispersion
model. Regions likely to be inuenced by residue burning are
identied through modeled hourly PM2.5 elds which are displayed
through a web-based animation system.
The ClearSky system is an event-specic means of identifying
regions potentially inuenced by residue burning. In the present
work, we develop a similar, but simpler, method to identify average
wood waste (slash) burning inuence regions based on a range of
meteorological conditions, burn locations and dispersion charac-
teristics. Specically, we use the CALMET atmospheric dispersion
model to calculate the impact on local PM2.5 concentrations from
burning slash piles placed around the city at various radial
distances and azimuthal angles. We then group together results
from days with common wind directions and atmospheric stability.
Superposition of ground-level concentration footprints from sour-
ces at different azimuthal positions allows us to identify regions
where burning will negatively impact air quality as a function of
wind direction and atmospheric stability. In order to capture
interannual meteorological variability, a three year period is
analyzed. Finally, the methods and analyses are developed so that
they can be easily used in the day-to-day permitting of open wood
waste burning by air quality meteorologists.
2. Study domain and meteorological data
2.1. Study domain
Prince George, a city of 77,000 inhabitants, is located at the
conuence of the Fraser and Nechako rivers in central British
Columbia, Canada at 53.9 N and 122.68 W. The downtown area
and much of the city proper is situated in a depression along the
Nechako and Fraser riverbanks about 150 m below the surrounding
Nechako Plateau. It is an industrial city having three pulp mills, an
oil renery, several sawmills and a major railway junction with
associated rail yards within its immediate area.
During anticyclonic (fair-weather) conditions, light winds
coupled with the surrounding escarpment impede the horizontal
dispersion of pollutants while nocturnal katabatic drainage ows
and radiative cooling lead to a strong thermal inversion limiting
vertical mixing. These meteorological conditions can occur anytime
of the year but are most common in the fall and winter. As a result
of these geographical and meteorological features, along with its
industrial activities, the city experiences periods of elevated PM2.5
levels which often exceed the Canada Wide Standard 24-hour
standard of 30 mg/m3 (98th percentile averaged over 3-years) (B.C.
Ministry of Environment, 2006). In response to these elevated PM2.5
levels, a number of local initiatives have been undertaken,
including the delineation of a region within the downtown area
where a Clean Air Bylaw restricts many polluting activities.
For the dispersion modeling, a 40  40 km study region
centered over the city of Prince George area was used (Fig. 1). In the
eastwest direction, this domain spanned UTM coordinates
500,000 to 540,000 (m) E and in the northsouth direction
5,955,000 to 5,995,000 (m) N. The domain was discretized into
1 1 km grid cells.
2.2. Meteorological data
Meteorological input data from six surface stations and one
upper air station was used to drive the dispersion simulations (see
Table 1 and Fig. 1). All stations were located within the city and
were operated by a variety of agencies (see Table 1). For each
station, hourly temperature, wind speed and direction measure-
ments were recorded. In addition, at the UNBC site, hourly relative
humidity and station pressure were measured while at the airport
site, hourly relative humidity, station pressure, cloud cover, opacity
and precipitation rates were measured. Since wet deposition was
not considered in the modeling, precipitation data was not relevant
to the analysis.
 B. Ainslie, P.L. Jackson / Journal of Environmental Management 90 (2009) 23932401 2395

5990
5990

5985
5985
5

5980 2
5980
UTM N (km)

UTM N (km)
5975 3
1 5975
7
6 4
5970
5970

5965
5965

5960
5960

5955
5955
495 500 505 510 515 520 525 530
495 500 505 510 515 520 525 530
UTM E (km)
UTM E (km)
Fig. 1. Map of the modeling domain showing the major highways, rivers and lakes, the
Prince George city limits and current existing Clean Air Bylaw boundary (hatched Fig. 2. Locations of the 24 sources (), at the 3 radii and 8 azimuthal angles used in
region). Numbers identify the locations of the six surface meteorological stations and dispersion modeling. Also shown is the existing Clean Air Bylaw Boundary (hatched),
one upper air station (described in Table 1) used in the analysis. the city limits and topography at 50 m intervals.

3.1. Emission scenarios

The upper-air data from the Environment Canada aerological
station was obtained twice daily with pressure, height, wind
speed and direction, temperature, and dew point temperature
recorded every 4050 m above ground level. For the CALPUFF
simulations, the upper-air data for each ight was interpolated to
the 10 model levels. For the few partial or missing soundings,
missing data was lled in by interpolation from the adjacent
ights. Only in a few cases were multi-ight interpolations
required.
3. Methods
To delineate the airshed boundaries with respect to PM2.5
concentrations associated with MPB slash burning, the Lagrangian
CALPUFF (Scire et al., 1999) dispersion model was run over the
20022004 period. This model was chosen because it is recom-
mended by the British Columbia Ministry of the Environment for
local scale dispersion modeling in regions of complex terrain (B.C.
Ministry of Environment, 2008). Meteorological elds used for the
dispersion calculations were developed separately by the CALMET
meteorological pre-processor. To be consistent with ambient PM2.5
objectives, we used CALPUFF to calculate average 24-hour
concentrations arising from the open slash burning under a range
of meteorological conditions.
The inuence of slash pile burning on the citys air quality was
modeled through a matrix of 24 scenarios. Each scenario modeled
the dispersion of PM2.5 from a ground-level source located at one of
3 radial distances from the city center (5, 10 and 15 km) and along
one of 8 azimuthal angles (0, 45, 90, 135, 180, 225, 270 and 315 ).
These source locations are marked on Fig. 2. For each scenario,
ambient PM2.5 concentrations resulting from the slash burning are
simulated for each day in the 3-year period. Following the local
burning practices, which allow burning only during daylight hours,
we model the dispersion of emissions over a 12-hour period
starting at 0600 and ending at 1800 LST. No burning is assumed to
occur over the following 12 h, although atmospheric concentra-
tions may still be elevated due to the slow natural removal of the
previously emitted pollution.
Source emissions rates were held constant during the 12-hour
burn period. Dispersion and resulting air quality were continued to
be modeled for the additional 12-hour overnight period. Model
output over the 24-hour burn/no burn period was then averaged to
produce a single daily average concentration eld. As a result,
a possible 26,280 (3 years  365 days  24 scenarios) burning
events were modeled.
For each burn, source emission rates were xed at 150 gs1
based on an estimated pile volume of 1000 m3 (10  10  10 m),

Table 1
Meteorological stations used in the dispersion modeling.

Station name Location Station type Operating agency UTMX (km) UMTY (km)
1 PLAZ Plaza 400 Surface B.C. Ministry of the Environment 517.005 5973.910
2 NORT Northwood Pulp Surface B.C. Ministry of the Environment 520.336 5979.981
3 PULP PG Pulp Surface B.C. Ministry of the Environment 520.612 5975.161
4 AIRP Airport Surface Transport Canada 521.359 5971.517
5 GLEN Glenview Surface B.C. Ministry of the Environment 514.714 5983.050
6 UNBC Unbc Surface The University of Northern B.C. 512.193 5971.669
7 ZXS Massey & Ospika Upper Air Meteorological Services Canada 514.455 5972.418
2396 B. Ainslie, P.L. Jackson / Journal of Environmental Management 90 (2009) 23932401

a stacking density of 0.5 (D. Fudge, personal communication) and Table 2

an emission factor of 12 g PM2.5/kg wood burned. The 12 g PM2.5/kg Micro-meteorological parameter ranges used in the CALMET simulations.

emission factor is taken from the US EPA AP-42 emission factors Variable Description Range
(Environmental Protection Agency, 1995) and represents emissions zo Surface Roughness (m) 0.0011.0
from Pacic Northwest mixed conifer logging slash. The slash B Bowen Ratio 0.01.5
burning emission rates can be compared with an estimated average a Albedo 0.10.3
hcf Soil heat ux (W/m2) 0.150.25
PM2.5 release rate of 17.0 gs1 from the Northwood Pulp and Paper
LAI Leaf Area Index 3.07.0
mill located within the Prince George area (based on an estimated ahf Anthropogenic Heat ux (W/m2) 0.0
total release rate of 536 tonnes/year 1).
It must be stressed that we are not modeling a large buoyancy
area or line source (e.g. a forest re) where additional burn rate
months occur, which would affect the surface sensible heat ux and
requirements like ignition patterns, fuel availability and moisture
ultimately the mixed layer depths.
content are needed but instead a small (100 m2) pile of relatively
We used the Batchvarova and Gryning convective MLD option
uniform timber. As a result, each burn was treated as an isolated
(Gryning and Batchvarova, 1996) which has been shown to realis-
buoyant point source with a nominal plume temperature of 398 K
tically simulate MLD in regions of complex topography (Batchvar-
and up-draft velocity of 1.0 ms1. These parameter values, while
ova et al., 1999) and to be a slight improvement over CALMETs
consistent with temperature and up-draft velocities reported from
standard MaulCarson mixing scheme in a coastal application
agricultural burning (Jain et al., 2007) are estimated values, and as
(Scire et al., 2005).
such, contribute additional uncertainties to the calculated surface
CALMET develops 3-D wind elds by initially calculating a rst
concentrations.
guess eld which takes into account the kinematic inuence of
Since the interest was in the determination of the potential
terrain on the wind. The radius of inuence of terrain features on
incremental impacts of MPB killed timber on the citys air quality,
the wind elds was set to 5.0 km. Next, an inverse-distance
each simulated day began with a clean background and only
weighting method was used to incorporate the observations from
a single source was simulated at a time. No deposition or chemical
the six surface stations into the rst guess wind eld. The distance
transformations were included in the modeling.
at which observations and the rst guess eld are given equal
weight in the interpolation was set to 1.0 km at the surface and
2.0 km aloft. The maximum radius of inuence of a station was set
3.2. CALMET meteorological pre-processor to 20 km. In addition, at a minimum distance of 4 km away from the
upper air station, similarity theory was used to extrapolate surface
To assess the airshed boundaries with respect to MPB associated wind observations to the upper layers. These settings were then
slash burning, the diagnostic meteorological model CALMET used with the meteorological observations to create gridded hourly
(Version 6.211) was run to produce three-dimensional meteoro- wind elds over the study domain for the years 20022004.
logical elds for use by the CALPUFF dispersion model. CALMET was
run over the 3 year study period to produce hourly wind and
3.3. CALPUFF dispersion modeling
temperature elds at the 1000 m grid resolution with 10 vertical
levels having boundaries at the following heights (in m AGL): 0, 20,
CALPUFF is a non-steady state puff Lagrangian Gaussian
50, 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1400, 2000 and 3000.
dispersion model that simulates the effects of the time- and space-
Gridded elevation and landuse values over the meteorological
varying meteorological conditions on pollutant transport, disper-
domain were required by CALMET. Elevation data was extracted
sion, transformation and removal (Scire et al., 1999). It is designed
from the USGS SRTM3 (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission 3) data2
to use the three-dimensional meteorological elds produced by
while landuse characteristics were extracted from the BC GOAT3
CALMET to transport and disperse puffs of emissions from
system. Fourteen CALMET landuse classes were used to charac-
modeled sources. CALPUFF uses similarity theory to estimate
terize the geophysical properties of the modeling domain.
horizontal and vertical plume turbulent dispersion coefcients and
An important component of the dispersion calculations is the
has algorithms to account for additional dispersive effects
specication of micro-meteorological surface characteristics.
including: building downwash, transitional plume rise, vertical
Because model calculated mixed layer depths (MLD), a central
wind shear, partial plume penetration, sub-grid scale terrain
parameter in the dispersion calculations, are sensitive to the land-
interactions, pollutant removal (wet scavenging and dry deposi-
surface characterization (Long et al., 2004), values for the surface
tion) and chemical transformation.
roughness, Bowen ratio (the ratio of sensible to latent heat ux
For each of the simulated burn events, the CALPUFF model was
which depends on soil moisture), surface albedo, ground and
run using the hourly CALMET wind elds appropriate for the
anthropogenic heat ux constants, and leaf area index where
simulation day and with the slash pile source at one of the radial
chosen so that they were within accepted ranges, and the resulting
distances and azimuthal angles. Pollution concentrations were
domain-averaged hourly MLDs were in qualitative agreement with
calculated hourly over the gridded 40  40 receptor network.
morning and evening MLD values reported in the Meteorological
Each of the resulting average daily concentration elds was
Service of Canada daily (FLCN39) smoke control forecasts. Surface
allocated to one of 72 groups. These groups were determined by:
characteristics varied by landuse class and Table 2 lists their ranges.
the source radius used in the simulations (3 possibilities), the
While many surface characteristics show seasonal variability, in
source azimuthal angle (8 possibilities) and a classication of
this analysis they were kept constant across all simulations. Typi-
atmospheric dispersion based on that days Environment Canada
cally, signicant albedo changes between the summer and winter
venting index (3 possibilities). The venting index is based on the
product of estimated mixed layer height and average wind speed
1 within this mixed layer. Stronger winds and/or deeper mixed layers
http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/querysite/substance_details_e.cfm.
2
Available at: http://www.src.com/datasets/datasets_main.htm. produce higher index values. Calculated values are converted to
3
GOAT is the BC Ministry of Sustainable Resource Management GIS and Oracle a scale of 0100 and are classied as being: poor (VI < 34), fair
Access Tool system (http://srmwww.gov.bc.ca/gis/goat5/). (34 < VI < 54) or good (VI > 54).
 B. Ainslie, P.L. Jackson / Journal of Environmental Management 90 (2009) 23932401 2397

Table 3 mass-consistent wind elds consistent with its inputs (Cox et al.,
Breakdown of CALPUFF simulations by azimuthal direction and VI class. The number 2005). The second was a leave-one-out cross-validation (Wilks,
of valid simulations does not vary with radial distance.
2006) where CALMET was run without the inclusion of the P.G. Pulp
VI class N NE E SE S SW W NW All directions meteorological observations. Observations from this station were
Poor 145 114 39 39 237 83 37 24 718 then used for validation of the CALMET produced wind elds. Both
Fair 25 23 5 5 56 37 14 9 174 evaluations were performed over the 2004 year.
Good 36 11 2 6 50 50 38 10 203
From the mass-consistent input evaluation, it was found that the
All classes 206 148 46 50 343 170 89 43 1095 station normalized wind vector anomaly correlations (Breaker
et al., 1994) were above 0.92 at all stations and with vector root-
mean-square errors (RMSE) below 1.1 m/s. The CALMET absolute
Next, for each simulated burn event, the daily dominant wind wind speed errors were found to vary between 17% (PLAZA) and
direction was determined by nding the average wind direction 34% (NORT) of the mean observed station wind speeds. The analysis
from the 6 meteorological stations averaged over the 12-hour burn also showed CALMET consistently under-estimates wind speeds
period. Then, for each group, only those days where the dominant varying between 81% (AIRP) to 94% (UNBC) of the time. This under
wind direction was within 22.5 of the emission source were kept prediction is consistent with other CALMET model evaluation
for further analysis and all other simulations were discarded. In this studies (Cox et al., 2005) and does not appear to be related to
way, the analysis considers only days when the burning slash pile is atmospheric stability (not shown).
located directly upwind of the populated downtown Prince George For the cross-validation study, the P.G. Pulp meteorological
area. Table 3 lists the number of modeled days for each of the VI station was chosen because it lies well within the boundaries of the
classes and wind directions. modeling domain. Hourly wind vectors were extracted from the
CALMET wind elds (developed without the P.G. Pulp meteoro-
logical inputs) at the four grid cells neighbouring the P.G. Pulp
4. Results location. An inverse-distance weighting scheme was used to
interpolate the modeled winds to the P.G. Pulp meteorological
4.1. CALMET results station site for comparison with the actual observations. A scatter
plot of these observed versus predicted wind speeds is given in
Fig. 3 shows the domain-averaged CALMET predicted and Fig. 4 while wind roses of observed and predicted hourly wind
Environment Canada forecast MLD for 2004 at 0700 and 1600 LST. directions are given in Fig. 5. The scatter plot shows the cross-
In general, the agreement between the two models is good. The lack validation and observed winds are in agreement with each other up
of seasonal albedo variability in the CALMET modeling likely to about 5.0 m/s (18 km/hr) but underpredicts wind speeds at the
contributes to some of the MLD overprediction during the winter higher values. The model bias was 0.43 m/s with mean absolute
months. error of 0.75 m/s. The normalized wind vector anomaly correlation
To assess the validity of the CALMET gridded wind elds, two between the observed and predicted hourly winds for this analysis
evaluations were performed. The rst evaluation compared was 0.74 with a vector root-mean-square error of 1.4 m/s. CALMET
observed against predicted wind elds at the six meteorological under-estimates the observed winds 71% of the time. These results
stations and was intended to gauge CALMETs ability to produce compare favourably with surface wind evaluations performed with

A 3000
2500
MLD (m agl)

2000

1500

1000

500

0
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Day 2004

B 3500

3000

2500
MLD (m agl)

2000

1500

1000

500

0
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Day 2004

Fig. 3. Calculated mixed layer depths from CALMET (dotted) and Environment Canada (solid) at 0700 (A) and 1600 (B) LST.
2398 B. Ainslie, P.L. Jackson / Journal of Environmental Management 90 (2009) 23932401
12
10
Predicted wind speed (m/s)
8
6 For each of the 72 emission scenarios (Table 3), all of the upwind
4 of the 1600 (40  40) receptor sites and the resulting values plotted
2
0 mated. Such plots are given in Fig. 6 for the 3 radial distances and 3
0 2 4 6 8 10
Observed wind speed (m/s)
Fig. 4. Scatter plot of observed versus predicted hourly wind speeds at the P.G. Pulp
meteorological stations for 2004. The solid line gives the 1:1 line.
the ClearSky smoke forecast system (Jain et al., 2007) and with
similar evaluations using diagnostic meteorological models (Cox
et al., 2005).
In Fig. 5, the observed (A) and cross-validation (B) wind roses
show CALMET reproduces the dominant NorthSouth wind direc-
tions at this location but tends to produce winds more often from
the NE than is observed. The average mean absolute error for wind
direction was 33 which compares favourably with the observa-
tions that show the ClearSky smoke dispersion forecast system
performs quite well on days where the forecast wind direction
error is less than 30 (Jain et al., 2007).
It is to be expected that the modeled wind eld errors, away
from station locations, will be greater than those obtained in the
mass-consistency validation analysis. For locations within the
perimeter enclosed by the six surface stations, wind eld errors are
likely to be no worse than those found in the leave-one-out cross-
validation analysis. The problem with estimating errors with this
type of analysis is that the calculated errors represent a combina-
tion of both the limitations of the CALMET interpolation as well as
the relative importance of the removed meteorological station at
representing the local spatial wind eld variability. We have tried to
isolate the model limitation errors in the cross-validation study by
A Observed
0 2000
330
300 1000
270
240
210
180
Fig. 5. Wind roses of hourly wind directions for 2004 at the P.G. Pulp meteorological station based on A) observations and B) the leave-one-out analysis. Note that directions are
with respect to North and give the direction from which the wind is blowing.
selecting the station closest to the middle of the modeling domain.
It is expected that wind eld errors will be larger for locations
outside of the six surface station perimeter.
4.2. CALPUFF concentration elds
simulated burn events were used to calculate concentrations at the
98th percentile (P98). P98 values were found individually for each
and contoured at the 30 mg/m3 level (corresponding to the CWS
PM2.5 24-hour objective). By overlaying P98 elds from groups with
sources at the different azimuthal positions (but similar source
distances and VI classications), the inuence regions can be esti-
12 VI classes. In each of the nine plots, areas where the 24-hour
average concentration (at the 98th percentile) exceeds 30 mg/m3
are shaded green.
The CALPUFF results show that under poor VI conditions, the
entire downtown area is susceptible to PM2.5 concentrations that
exceed the CWS, regardless of source distance from the downtown
area. Similarly, the analysis suggests under all VI conditions, slash
burning within 5 km of the city has the potential to trigger CWS
exceedances. The model suggests under good VI conditions, sources
burning at distances greater than 10 km will not overly inuence
the city and sources at 15 km burning under fair conditions are also
likely to be acceptable. The one exception in this scenario appears
to be the 15 km southerly sources (burning on days with the winds
from the south). The model hints that some parts of the bowl area
may not be overly inuenced from 10 km sources burning under
fair conditions. Thus, accepting burning under fair conditions at
10 km should be considered a judgment call.
From the composite plots, it is possible to estimate for each of
the 8 wind directions, the source distance (from the city center) at
which the 30 mg/m3 contour just reaches the existing Clean Air
Bylaw Boundary. These distances, dependent on the underlying
stability (VI class), can then be used to identify MPB debris burning
airshed boundaries (Fig. 7). In general, the boundaries are furthest
from the city under poor VI conditions and closest under good VI
conditions. For a given VI class, the northwesterly and southerly
wind directions have the most distant boundaries, partly due to the
elongated nature of the Clean Air Bylaw Boundary in these
directions.
B Predicted
0 2000
30 330 30
60 300 1000 60
90 270 90
120 240 120
150 210 150
180
 B. Ainslie, P.L. Jackson / Journal of Environmental Management 90 (2009) 23932401 2399

5990 5990 5990

5980
+ ++ + 5980
+ ++ + 5980
+ ++ +
++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++

5 km
8 12 16 8 12 16 8 12 16
5970
+ 5970
+ 5970
+
5960 5960 5960

500 510 520 530 500 510 520 530 500 510 520 530

5990 5990 5990

5980 + + + 5980 + + + 5980 + + +

10 km
5970
+ + + 8 12 16
5970
+ + +8 12 16
5970
+ + +8 12 16

+ + + + + + + + +
5960 5960 5960

500 510 520 530 500 510 520 530 500 510 520 530

5990
+ 5990
+ 5990
+
5980
+ + 5980
+ + 5980
+ +

15 km
5970
+ + +
8 12 16
5970
+ + +
8 12 16
5970
+ + +
8 12 16

+ + + + + +
5960
+ 5960
+ 5960
+
500 510 520 530 500 510 520 530 500 510 520 530
Poor Fair Good
Fig. 6. CALPUFF based composite plots of 98th percentile 30 mg/m3 concentrations for days with predicted morning VI indices of: poor, fair, and good and for source distances of 5,
10 and 15 km from the city center. Also shown in each plot is the existing Clean Air Bylaw boundary (hatched) and range rings at 8, 12 and 16 km (dotted).

5. Discussion We have repeated the analysis in order to investigate the

In order to facilitate the local air quality meteorologists job in
the permitting of open wood waste burning, we have chosen to
delineate local airshed boundaries using Environment Canadas
daily forecast ventilation index, the CWS PM2.5 standard and
atmospheric dispersion models. Based on our analysis, the
following general guidelines concerning MPB inuence regions can
be inferred:
 No burning, under any VI classes should be allowed within
10 km of the city center.
 No burning, at any distance within 20 km from the city center
should be allowed under poor VI conditions.
 Under good VI conditions burning can be allowed between 10
and 15 km of the city center.
 Burning can be allowed beyond 15 km away from the city
center under fair and good VI conditions.
 With a reliable wind from a direction away from the city,
burning could be considered between 5 and 10 km from the
city center under good ventilation conditions.
The above analysis is based on only one burning wood pile,
multiple burning piles would incrementally increase the pollutant
levels. These recommendations are schematically represented in
Fig. 8.
inuence of lower emission rates, stemming from the use of air
curtain incinerators or trench burn Environmental Protection
Agency (1995), on the inuence regions. The resulting inuence
regions (not shown) indicate that by reducing the emission rates by
62%, it is now acceptable to burn between 10 and 15 km of the city
center on days with fair or good VI conditions. It becomes a judg-
ment call whether to allow burning between 5 and 10 km of the
city under good conditions and beyond 15 km under poor VI
conditions.
One problem with the use of the CWS in the operational
denition, is its dependence on 98th percentile concentrations.
After classifying each day by dominant wind direction and
stability, many of the CALPUFF groups do not have a large
number of members. The CALPUFF results would be more robust
through the use of a longer study period. This may not be as
important an issue in locations where wind roses show a more
uniform distribution.
The analysis could be improved through the comparison of our
dispersion model output against eld data. Unfortunately, there is
neither eld data nor events-of-opportunity which can be used
to validate the models. In an attempt to bracket model uncer-
tainties, the analysis was repeated using the the AERMOD
(Cimorelli et al., 2005) dispersion model. AERMOD is a steady-
state Gaussian plume dispersion model used to estimate near-eld
concentrations from industrial sources. While CALPUFF tracks the
2400 B. Ainslie, P.L. Jackson / Journal of Environmental Management 90 (2009) 23932401
5990
5985
5980
5975
5970
5965
5960
5955
495 500 505 510 515 520 525
Fig. 7. CALPUFF based safe MPB-burn areas around the city of Prince George for
different VI indices of poor (dashed), fair (solid) and good (dash-dot). Also shown is the
existing Clean Air Bylaw boundary (hatched), the city limits, major highways and
rivers.
downwind advection and turbulent dispersion of a series of puffs
emitted from a source, AERMOD calculates steady state pollution
concentrations given a set of meteorological conditions and terrain
characteristics. Both models are recommended for dispersion
calculations by the B.C. Ministry of the Environment (B.C. Ministry
of Environment, 2008) and because of their different approaches
to modeling advection and turbulent transport, comparing their
results may shed some insight into the level of uncertainty in our
results.
Briey, as with the CALPUFF simulations, AERMOD was set up to
calculate downwind concentrations from a single burning slash pile
over the CALPUFF 40  40 receptor network. To characterize the
dispersive nature within the boundary layer, the AERMET meteo-
rological processor was run with hourly observations of wind
speed, wind direction, temperature, cloud ceiling, total cloud cover
and sky opacity from the YXS airport meteorological station. We
found the resulting AERMET calculated hourly PBL depths differed
substantially from both the Environment Canada and CALPUFF
values. These differences were often in excess of a factor of two.
Because of CALMETs more sophisticated methods to calculate MLD,
and because of its reasonable agreement with the Environment
Canada MLD, it was decided to force the AERMOD simulations with
the domain-averaged hourly CALPUFF MLD. All other AERMET
meteorological data was left unchanged.
In general the AERMOD results were similar to the CALPUFF
results. The main difference with the AERMOD results were
narrower ground-level footprints along the cross-wind direction.
AERMOD also produces narrower neck-tie looking plumes,
especially in the NorthSouth direction under good VI conditions.
The AERMOD MBP-debris burning airshed boundaries are in
qualitative agreement with the CALMET boundaries but places the
airshed boundaries further away from the city center for winds
from the North. We must stress that this consistency between
models cannot replace comparisons with observations, and as
530
Fig. 8. Schematic of recommended safe burning regions under the different VI classes.
Note that with a reliable wind from a direction away from the city, burning could be
considered between 5 and 10 km from the city center under good ventilation condi-
tions (not shown). Also, the above gure is based on only one burning wood pile,
multiple burning piles would incrementally increase the pollutant levels. The hatched
region is the existing Clean Air Bylaw boundary and the solid blue line marks the city
limits. Also shown are the major highways and rivers.
such, our results must be considered exploratory rather than
denitive. Furthermore, while the two models differ in their
approach to calculating dispersion (steady-state Gaussian versus
Lagrangian puff), because AERMOD was forced with the CALMET
PBL depths, the two analyses cannot be considered entirely
independent.
We have not included any forms of deposition or chemical
removal in our analysis. As such, these results likely give conser-
vative estimates for the impacted areas. Similarly, we have neither
included background PM2.5 concentrations nor the incremental
impact of other sources in the airshed in our analysis. Consequently,
greater burning restrictions are likely needed when ambient PM2.5
are high. However, in many cases, these days occur on days with
poor VI, which we suggest are not suitable for burning anyway. The
additional inuence of background concentrations on the safe
burning limits is likely to be most important under fair VI condi-
tions. It should be noted that the inuence of background
concentrations in the determination of appropriate burning loca-
tions could be considered through an assessment of the airsheds
assimilative capacity (Goyal and Chalapati Rao, 2007; Rama Krishna
et al., 2004; Manju et al., 2002). However, such an analysis would
require the development of a detailed inventory of local PM2.5
sources. Such inventories often have large uncertainties and are
difcult to produce.
There are a number of specialized dispersion models that
have been developed for the calculation of emissions and
dispersion of smoke from forest res (Ferguson, 2001). In
addition to meteorology and plume rise, these models take into
account factors like: ignition patterns; fuel availability and
moisture content on smoke dispersion. However, because of the
small scale (100 m2) and isolated nature of the slash pile burning
modeled herein, we believe the treatment of the dispersion as
a buoyant point source with the CALPUFF (Scire et al., 1999) to be
a reasonable approach.
 B. Ainslie, P.L. Jackson / Journal of Environmental Management 90 (2009) 23932401
6. Conclusions
We have used two different atmospheric dispersion models in
order to delineate MPB burning inuence regions around the city of
Prince George, B.C. Since these regions are not xed geographical
entities but dependent on many factors including pollutant,
a concentration threshold and atmospheric conditions, we have
delineated different inuence regions based on Environment Can-
adas ventilation index and the CWS PM2.5 standard. We have
adopted this operational denition so that our results may be easily
used by the local air pollution meteorologist when assessing open
wood waste burning requests. Based on our analysis, we formulate
the following guidelines for use by the local air quality managers:
 No burning, under any VI classes should be allowed within
10 km of the city center.
 No burning, at any distance within 20 km from the city center
should be allowed under poor VI conditions.
 Under good VI conditions burning can be allowed between 10
and 15 km of the city center.
 Burning can be allowed beyond 15 km away from the city
center under fair and good VI conditions.
 Under good ventilation conditions, and when wind direction is
reliably forecast to be from a direction away from the city, burning
can be considered between 5 and 10 km from the city center.
While the results presented here are specic to the Prince
George area, the methods are both sufciently simple and general
to be applicable in other regions. The present analysis is based on
numerical modeling of dispersion. While great care has been taken
to assure the modeling was performed as well as possible using
a well-tested industry standard dispersion model and accepted
settings for any free parameters, we have not validated our
dispersion results against observational data (such data does not
exist for this airshed). While we have tried to bracket the uncer-
tainty in our analysis by using second model which handles
atmospheric dispersion in a different way, we cannot place uncer-
tainty limits on our analysis.
Furthermore, the analysis seeks to quantify the potential incre-
mental impacts of burning MBP killed timber on the local air
quality. Because of this, and because of the need to make recom-
mendations which are broadly applicable, the analysis has excluded
important factors such as background pollution, other emission
sources, chemistry, and dry deposition. Consequently, it is intended
that this analysis be used along side the local air pollution mete-
orologists expert knowledge when permitting open burning.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Dr. John Spagnol for setting up the CALPUFF
modeling domain and his assistance with some of the graphics. We
would also like to thank Wendy Nordin at the City of Prince George
for her GIS work.
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