Forest fires and air pollution in Portugal Ana Isabel Miranda, Célia Alves, Alexandra Monteiro Department of Environment and Planning University of Aveiro

Pedrogão Grande, 17 June 2017

Aveiro, 12 August 2016 * 2015 - dados provisórios constantes na base de dados do SGIF no dia 16 de outubro de 2015

Air Quality in Aveiro comes down to the worst level Jornal de Notícias, 11 August 2016 Air Quality in Aveiro comes down to the worst level 2016 – 11 August

PM10 concentration values in the air quality monitoring station (daily averages)

Wildfires 2016 August From 8 August 2016 To 15 August 2016 NUT3 Entre Douro e Vouga Total burnt area (ha) 26593 http://forest.jrc.ec.europa.eu/effis/applications/current-situation/

Portugal – summer of 2003 03/08/2003 (MODIS NASA/GSFC)

August 2003 Differences between PM10 levels (μg m-3) simulated with a model considering and not considering wildfires emissions (Martins et al., 2012)

For each fire larger than 100 ha forest fire emissions - August 2003 For each fire larger than 100 ha PM10 NOx (Martins et al., 2012)

Emission inventories, climate change models, atmospheric photochemical models, and source apportionment models use emission profiles which should reflect the regional characteristics of biofuels Objective: Quantify emission factors for a wide range of particulate phase compounds (organics, metals, and ions), as well for gaseous pollutants, released by wildfires

Field equipment to sample smoke plumes Tri-pod high-volume atmospheric particulate matter sampler Bags to collect gaseous compounds

Analytical methodologies

Results

Coimbra, August 2005 21 August Burnt area 6102 ha

Chemical Transport Model (CTM) Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) multi-scale approach Chemical Transport Model (CTM) LOTOS-EUROS 1000 m 1000 m FLUENT Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)

air quality modeling: PM10 11 p.m., 21 August 2005 High PM10 values, indicating a high background value, probably from the WUI fires and the nocturnal atmospheric stability. But, it’s still possible to identify the typical urban hot-spot in the city centre.

air quality modeling: PM10 11 a.m., 22 August 2005 Hourly PM10 concentration values very high (400 µg m-3). Hot-spots resulting from road traffic emissions typically found along the Avenue are “diluted” by the much higher concentration levels from forest fires smoke. Direction Speed

Can a fireman be exposed to serious air pollution levels? Exposure measurements Health indicators

Results (firefighter 4 in 2008, July 16th) Instantaneous concentration values were frequently very high. The knowledge on the CO concentration peaks to which firefighters are exposed is very important due to the risk of asphyxia. CO peak limit is exceeded three times. (Miranda et al., 2012)

Effects of smoke on human health exhaled CO % carboxy-haemoglobin

Forest fires… in the future… ΔFWI Fire weather risk in 2100 Higher risk substantial increase on area burned and number of fires under future climate an earlier and longer fire season would be expected under future climatic scenario August (Miranda et al., 1994; Carvalho et al., 2008, 2010, 2011)

The operational JRC EFFIS dispersion module (ARIA-UAVR) Validation of the modelling system results and contribution to its improvement

Thank you for your attention!!! Universidade de Aveiro Thank you for your attention!!! www.dao.ua.pt/gemac miranda@ua.pt