A modeling study for assessment of air quality across European countries

Air pollution remains a significant environmental challenge, with adverse effects on human health, ecosystems, and climate. Accurate modeling of pollutant concentrations is essential for developing effective mitigation strategies and informing policy decisions. As such, the aim of the study is to simulate the concentrations of gaseous and particulate pollutants across Europe assessing the discrepancies between observed and predicted values for various countries. The Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) v.5.3 Modeling System is used to estimate air quality for 2019, employing a 20 km × 20 km grid resolution for the whole Europe. Anthropogenic emission data from the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) for 2019 at a resolution of 0.1 × 0.1 degrees have been used. The available data include emissions for CO, NH₃, NMVOC, NOx, PM₁₀, PM_2.5 and SOx classified into 13 categories, depending on the source of origin. These emissions were processed using the Sparse Matrix Operator Kernel Emissions (SMOKE) system to align with the air quality model’s requirements. Biogenic emissions were integrated using the Biogenic Emission Inventory System (BEIS), supported by land use data at 1 km resolution from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). In addition, the meteorological fields are derived using The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model. The simulation results show satisfactory predictions for O₃, PM_2.5, NO₂ and SO₂ concentrations, while identifying regions with the most pronounced deviations from observed values.