ICUC12-387, updated on 21 May 2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/icuc12-387
12th International Conference on Urban Climate
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Monitor and unveil urban atmospheric processes: the The Boundary-layer Air Quality-analysisUsing Network of INstruments (BAQUNIN) supersite
AnnaMaria Iannarelli1, Annalisa Di Bernardino2, Stefano Casadio2,3, Monica Campanelli4, Giampietro Casasanta4, Henri Diémoz5, Cristiana Bassani6, Gabriele Mevi1, Anna Maria Siani2, Massimo Cardaci1, Tatiana di Iorio7, Stefano Decesari8, Enrico Cadau9, Angelika Dehn3, and Philippe Goryl3
AnnaMaria Iannarelli et al.
  • 1Serco, Frascati, Italy (annamaria.iannarelli@serco.com)
  • 2Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
  • 3ESA/ESRIN, Frascati (RM), Italy
  • 4CNR-ISAC Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
  • 5ARPA Valle d’Aosta, Aosta, Italy
  • 6CNR-IIA, Monterotondo (RM), Italy
  • 7ENEA Casaccia (RM), Italy
  • 8CNR-ISAC Bologna, Italy
  • 9Sardegna Clima APS, Fonni (NU), Italy

The Boundary-layer Air Quality-analysis Using Network of Instruments (BAQUNIN) project has been promoted by the European Space Agency to establish an experimental research infrastructure for the investigation of the urban and planetary boundary layers, providing quality checked ground-based observations essential for the synergistic analysis of urban climate atmospheric processes and for the validation of satellite atmospheric products.

The BAQUNIN supersite currently consists of three observatories in Rome (Italy) managed by
different research institutions. These are located in the city center (Atmospheric Physics Laboratory of Sapienza University, APL) and in the neighboring semi-rural (CNR-ISAC Tor Vergata) and rural (CNR-IIA Montelibretti) areas. BAQUNIN is one of the first “distributed” supersites in the world to involve several passive and active ground-based instruments installed in multiple urban and suburban environments in a highly polluted megacity. The configuration of the supersite allows to (i) provide an urban boundary layer characterization, (ii) monitor atmospheric pollution and atmospheric constituents, and (iii) provide reference measurements for validating and calibrating numerical models and satellite products in urban, semi-rural, and rural contexts in the middle of the Mediterranean basin and with peculiar anemological characteristics such as coastal weather regimes. Since 2016, the supersite has been collecting continuous surface and columnar atmospheric measurements of thermodynamic variables, particulate matter, and trace gases, also providing  long-term datasets for climatological studies. 

Moreover, the urban APL observatory is equipped to host ground-based instruments for inter-comparison/inter-calibration campaigns in a challenging urban environment.
The project adopts a policy of free sharing of its validated dataset with citizens, scientific and Cal/Val communities, both through the project website (www.baqunin.eu) and the portals of international networks to which some of the BAQUNIN instruments belong.

In this contribution, the main characteristics of the BAQUNIN supersite are described, providing
information about the complex instrumental suite operations/maintenance and the produced data.

How to cite: Iannarelli, A., Di Bernardino, A., Casadio, S., Campanelli, M., Casasanta, G., Diémoz, H., Bassani, C., Mevi, G., Siani, A. M., Cardaci, M., di Iorio, T., Decesari, S., Cadau, E., Dehn, A., and Goryl, P.: Monitor and unveil urban atmospheric processes: the The Boundary-layer Air Quality-analysisUsing Network of INstruments (BAQUNIN) supersite, 12th International Conference on Urban Climate, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 7–11 Jul 2025, ICUC12-387, https://doi.org/10.5194/icuc12-387, 2025.

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