MULTISCALE AIR QUALITY IMPACT OF AIRPORT AND EN ROUTE AVIATION EMISSIONS

The environmental impact of aviation emissions has been analysed at different spatial and temporal scales to assess the main impact of aircraft operations including taxi, take-off, landing and cruise phases. Chemical transport models have been applied to evaluate the aviation emissions impact from global to urban scale considering all the anthropogenic and biogenic emission contributions. A Lagrangian particle model has been employed at local scale to quantify the air quality impact of the different activities of a urban airport and, at microscale, to estimate the maximum expectable air pollutants concentration in the airport surroundings during unfavourable meteorological and operational conditions. The main population exposure occurs nearby the airport infrastructure, where significant hourly average concentrations can occur during unfavourable conditions. At urban scale the aviation impact is limited and much lower than that attributable to other sources. At global scale the aviation emissions increase ozone in the northern hemisphere and influence climate through short lived climate forcing compounds effects.