Microscale Carbon Dioxide Concentration Maps Developed Using Mobile Measurements and Multi-Scale Numerical Models

According to UNEP, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2023 reached 57.1 GT, a 1.3% increase from 2022. These GHGs are predominantly emitted from industrial complexes, with 42.5% of South Korea's total GHG emissions originating from such complexes. As of 2022, 74.1% of the energy sources used in industrial complexes relied on oil and coal. Therefore, accurately identifying CO2 emissions, a representative GHG, is crucial for managing emissions in industrial complexes. While many studies focus on field measurements and modeling to quantify CO2 emissions accurately, field measurements face spatiotemporal limitations, and modeling can result in errors caused by input values and calculations. To address these limitations, this study aims to develop detailed CO2 concentrations by complementary combination between field measurements and numerical modeling. The site of this study is the industrial complex in Siheung City, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, targeting August 2023 and February 2024. The domain includes industrial facilities, roads, and grasslands (parks), which serve as both sources and sinks of CO2. Mobile sensors were mounted on bicycles and electric vehicles to collect CO2 concentration data, and land-use sensitivity analyses were conducted to align the model with the collected data. The results revealed seasonal differences in CO2 absorption and emissions. Furthermore, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations successfully reproduced CO2 concentration distributions similar to the observed field measurements. We conclude that complementing field measurements and modeling can overcome their respective limitations and provides a detailed CO2 concentration field for more effective emission management.

This work was supported by “Korea Environment Industry & Technology Institute(KEITI) through Project for developing an observation-based GHG emissions geospatial information map, funded by Korea Ministry of Environment(MOE) (RS-2023-00232066).”