Papers by Marialuisa Volta
Environmental health perspectives, Sep 18, 2022
IFAC-PapersOnLine, 2020
Transport sector is responsible for 25% of European GHG emissions, furthermore it has high impact... more Transport sector is responsible for 25% of European GHG emissions, furthermore it has high impacts on air pollution at various scales. Electric mobility is growing fast and it could be effective in reducing road transport GHGs and pollutant emissions, but its potential depends on the energy mix used to produce electricity. In this paper an Integrated Assessment Model is proposed to analyze the energetic transition to an electric vehicle fleet at regional scale. Two scenarios are proposed to assess at the same time which are the impacts of the electric power sources and of the reduced road transport emissions. Results are presented in terms of CO2 emissions, air quality indexes, energy savings and health impacts.
For the purpose of short-term forecasting of high ozone concentration episodes stochastic models ... more For the purpose of short-term forecasting of high ozone concentration episodes stochastic models have been suggested and developed in the literature. The present paper compares the quality of forecasts produced by a grey box and a component time-series model. The summer ozone patterns for three European urban areas (two continental and one mediterranean) are processed. By means of forecast performance indices according to EC and WHO guidelines, the following features of the models could be found: The grey box model is highly adaptive and produces forecasts with low error variance that increases with the time horizon of forecast. The component model is more 'stiff' that results in a higher forecast-error variance and poorer adaption in detail. The forecast horizon, however, could be enlarged with this model. The accuracy of predicting threshold exceedance is similar for both models. This can be understood from the assumption of a cyclical time development of ozone that was made for both models.
International Journal of Environment and Pollution, 2003
ABSTRACT
SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology, 2017
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriat... more adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this book are included in the work's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if such material is not included in the work's Creative Commons license and the respective action is not permitted by statutory regulation, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to duplicate, adapt or reproduce the material. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Jan 7, 2019
Human health and well-being are strongly linked to the state of the environment. The high industr... more Human health and well-being are strongly linked to the state of the environment. The high industrial pressure present in the Province of Brescia, located in Northern Italy, produced strong environmental and health concerns. This narrative review of the literature aims at identifying the studies focused on the association between exposure to environmental pollutants and health effects in the population living in this area. Thirteen papers fitted the inclusion criteria: five were focused on the connection among pollutants present in air matrix and health effects, seven on both air and soil, and one on soil. No study investigated the relationship with water pollution. The great variability in the analyzed end-points made it difficult to draw precise conclusions, but the fact that, in almost all the studies, the investigated health effects have a positive association with the exposure to different kinds of pollutants, allows us to hypothesize that the considered population is living in an area where the Benvironmental pressure^could produce significant health effects in the future.
Mercato Concorrenza Regole, 2020
IFAC-PapersOnLine, Jul 1, 2017
Decision Support Systems (DSSs) are key tools to help the decision makers in the development of e... more Decision Support Systems (DSSs) are key tools to help the decision makers in the development of effective strategies to reduce atmospheric pollution. This is especially true for secondary atmospheric pollutants, which are generated in the atmosphere through complex non-linear reactions, involving anthropogenic and biogenic precursor emissions. In this work, a new methodology called Concentration Reduction Apportionment (CRA) technique, is formalized and applied to support decision makers in air quality planning. The feasible potential impacts and costs of the application of emission abatement measures in different clusters of anthropic activities on PM10 concentrations are assessed and a case study in Northern Italy is then presented.
Retrospective Collection, 1997
Environmental Modelling and Software, Sep 1, 2016
Air pollution in atmosphere derives from complex non-linear relationships, involving anthropogeni... more Air pollution in atmosphere derives from complex non-linear relationships, involving anthropogenic and biogenic precursor emissions. Due to this complexity, Decision Support Systems (DSSs) are important tools to help Environmental Authorities to control/improve air quality, reducing human and ecosystems pollution impacts. DSSs implementing cost-effective or multi-objective methodologies require fast air quality models, able to properly describe the relations between emissions and air quality indexes. These, namely surrogate models (SM), are identified processing deterministic model simulation data. In this work, the Lazy Learning technique has been applied to reproduce the relations linking precursor emissions and pollutant concentrations. Since computational time has to be minimized without losing precision and accuracy, tests aimed at reducing the amount of input data have been performed on a case study over Lombardia Region in Northern Italy.
Ecological Modelling, May 1, 2007
Regional authorities need tools to develop air quality plans, particularly when dealing with seco... more Regional authorities need tools to develop air quality plans, particularly when dealing with secondary pollutants, as ozone, characterized by complex and non-linear dynamics. This work presents a two objective problem considering both effectiveness and costs of alternative environmental policies. Problem solutions suggest action priorities to an environmental authority to improve air quality. To solve the multi-objective problem, an integrated modeling system has been designed and implemented. It includes (1) pollutant-precursor models identified by processing the simulations of a photochemical modeling system and (2) cost functions linking technology costs to emission reductions. The proposed methodology has been applied to a complex domain in Northern Italy, including Milan metropolitan area, a region characterized by high ozone levels in the summer season.
Springer eBooks, Sep 15, 2017
Secondary pollutant production and removal are non linear processes, driven by precursor emission... more Secondary pollutant production and removal are non linear processes, driven by precursor emissions, solar radiation and meteorological conditions. The study of these processes and the evaluation of the impact that suitable emission control strategies can have in a certain domain, require the implementation of deterministic mathematical models solving chemical/transport differential equation systems. This work presents the Transport and Chemical Aerosol Model (TCAM) and its validation over a Northern Italy domain, performed processing yearly simulations concerning 1999. The model assessment analysis underlines that the model is adequately reliable to describe the atmospheric chemistry in a complex domain and that it can be used to estimate the impact of secondary pollution control strategies.
Atmospheric air pollution is one of the main environmental problems that our society is facing. M... more Atmospheric air pollution is one of the main environmental problems that our society is facing. Moreover, according to the World Health Organization it is a major worldwide environmental risk to health. Due to these facts, Decision Support Systems (DSSs) have been developed to help Environmental Authorities in designing short and long terms air quality plans to cost-efficiently control the impacts of atmospheric pollution. A key component of the DSSs is the air quality forecasting system, needed to compute the pollutant concentrations in advance with respect to the occurrence of critical events. These models can adopt either a deterministic or a statistical approach. In both cases, the resulting models are characterized by intrinsic strengths and weaknesses. This work proposes an approach to develop and implement air quality forecasting models by integrating these two approaches to reap their benefits while avoiding or minimizing the disadvantages, focusing on the often neglected field of short term air pollution. This integration is done by implementing a reanalysis algorithm allowing to rely on the complexity and accuracy of deterministic models and on the performances of statistical models, limiting, at the same time, the frequent concentration underestimation of deterministic models and the statistical models spatial limitations. Such approach has been tested by identifying models to reproduce the daily mean concentrations of particulate matter on Lombardy region, a highly polluted area in Northern Italy.
Atmosphere, Jul 9, 2019
Due to some harmful effects on humans and the environment, particulate matter (PM) has recently b... more Due to some harmful effects on humans and the environment, particulate matter (PM) has recently become among the most studied atmospheric pollutants. Given the growing sensitivity to the problem and, since production and accumulation phenomena involving both primary and secondary PM 10 fractions are complex and non-linear, environmental authorities need tools to assess their plans designed to improve the air quality as requested from environmental laws. Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) can be applied to support decision makers, by processing quantitative opinions provided by pools of experts, especially when different views on social aspects should be considered. The results obtained through this approach, however, can be highly dependent on the subjectivity of experts. To partially overcome these challenges, this paper suggests a two-step methodology in which an MCDA is fed with the solution of a multi-objective analysis (MOA). The methodology has been applied to a test case in northern Italy and the results show that this approach is a viable solution for the inclusion of subjective criteria in decision making, while reducing the impact of uncertain expert opinions for data that can be computed through the MOA.
Ecological Modelling, Nov 1, 2008
The aim of this modelling study is to quantify the effects of transboundary processes, anthropoge... more The aim of this modelling study is to quantify the effects of transboundary processes, anthropogenic and biogenic emissions on tropospheric ozone production and accumulation. The proposed methodology, based on the use of the factor separation technique, allows to evaluate the maximum feasible efficiency of anthropogenic emission control strategies over a domain, a useful information when implementing ozone control policies. The proposed case study focuses on the effectiveness of emission control policies over the Po Valley region (northern Italy), a very polluted area in Europe characterized by critical ozone levels during summer periods, due to high anthropogenic emissions and stagnating meteorological conditions. The study allows to identify two regions in the study domain, that require the implementation of different pollution abatement policies: (1) the central urbanized area, that is sensitive to the local anthropogenic emission reduction measures, and (2) the northern mountain region, where the implementation of international policies is required because of the limited effectiveness of local reduction strategies.
Atmospheric Environment, Oct 1, 2009
To implement sound air quality policies, Regulatory Agencies require tools to evaluate outcomes a... more To implement sound air quality policies, Regulatory Agencies require tools to evaluate outcomes and costs associated to different emission reduction strategies. These tools are even more useful when considering atmospheric PM10 concentrations due to the complex nonlinear processes that affect production and accumulation of the secondary fraction of this pollutant. The approaches presented in the literature (Integrated Assessment Modeling) are mainly cost-benefit and cost-effective analysis. In this work, the formulation of a multi-objective problem to control particulate matter is proposed. The methodology defines: (a) the control objectives (the air quality indicator and the emission reduction cost functions); (b) the decision variables (precursor emission reductions); (c) the problem constraints (maximum feasible technology reductions). The cause-effect relations between air quality indicators and decision variables are identified tuning nonlinear sourcereceptor models. The multi-objective problem solution provides to the decision maker a set of not-dominated scenarios representing the efficient trade-off between the air quality benefit and the internal costs (emission reduction technology costs). The methodology has been implemented for Northern Italy, often affected by high long-term exposure to PM10. The source-receptor models used in the multi-objective analysis are identified processing long-term simulations of GAMES multiphase modeling system, performed in the framework of CAFE-Citydelta project.
Springer proceedings in complexity, 2021
IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, 2022
This article proposes an integrated assessment methodology aimed at supporting decision-makers in... more This article proposes an integrated assessment methodology aimed at supporting decision-makers in design energy production scenarios to power a low emissions traffic fleet. The Multidimensional Air Quality (MAQ) system is used to define and solve a decision problem that selects a set of energy production scenarios minimizing costs, impacts on air quality, and greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions. This study focuses on the road transport sector, that is responsible for 25% of European GHGs emissions and 39% of NO x emission, a precursor of both NO 2 and PM 10 concentrations. The electrification of the light vehicle fleet and the use of biomethane to power heavy vehicles are analyzed, estimating the electricity demand increase, exploring different energy production mixes, and assessing the impacts on air quality, costs, and GHGs according to the fuels/sources used to satisfy the energy demand. A case study over Lombardy region, in Northern Italy, is proposed. Note to Practitioners-The study designs a new decision problem implemented and solved through the Multidimensional Air Quality system (MAQ), an integrated assessment modeling tool. Such system integrates a set of databases, models, optimization, and enumeration algorithms. Composing these elements, specific multiobjective decision problems can be designed defining domain (mesoscale, regional, urban), objectives (air quality index, greenhouse gas emissions, costs, population exposure, health impacts), decision variables (technologies, behavioral measures, energy production, fuel switch), and constraints. MAQ system allows the comprehensive analysis of energy, technological, behavioral policies estimating impacts on air quality, human health, GHGs emissions, and costs. Index Terms-Air quality integrated assessment modeling, decision support systems, energy policies, environmental system analysis, multiobjective decision problems. NOMENCLATURE A. Parameters n r Total number of renewable sources. n n Total number of nonrenewable sources. n t Total number of renewable and nonrenewable sources.
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Papers by Marialuisa Volta