Evaluating the Impact of Fire Emissions Inventories on Air Quality Simulation and Health Impact Assessment during the 2012 Colorado Wildfire Season Öffentlichkeit

Abstract

Wildfires are a global phenomenon and pose a threat to human health. Exposure to wildfire smoke has been associated with a variety of cardiovascular and respiratory problems as well as cancer. In order to assess these associations in fire epidemiological studies, it is crucial to utilize methods that most accurately measures concentrations of air pollutants. Recently, researchers have began using high resolution fire inventories such as Fire INventory from NCAR (FINN) and Quick Fire Emissions Dataset (QFED) to quantify emissions from wildfires. This study evaluated these two fire inventories by comparing their PM2.5 estimates to those calculated by Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) ground monitor stations, which is considered the golden standard. Then, these fire inventories were applied in a conditional logistic regression that yielded effect estimates for six respiratory and seven cardiovascular endpoint. This study found that QFED generated a higher correlation coefficient and thus, revealed that it more accurately estimated PM2.5 than FINN of both 12 km and 4 km resolutions. Additionally, FINN and QFED resulted in similar patterns of significant effect estimates, which suggested that horizontal resolutions was a stronger predictor for effect estimates than the other factors in the fire inventory equations.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction..........1

1.1. Wildfires and Adverse Health Outcomes......................1

1.2. 2012 Colorado Wildfire Season...................3

1.3. Future Projections of Wildfires in the U.S.....................4

1.4. Fire Inventories........................4

2. Materials and Methods..........................6

2.1. Aims and Hypothesis.....................6

2.2. WRF-Chem Model................10

2.3. FINNv1.5.........................11

2.4. QFEDv2.4....................12

2.5. Difference between Fire Inventories........................13

2.6. Methods..........................13

2.6.1 Comparison with Observations...........................13

2.6.2. Statistical Analysis..............................14

3. Results..........................15

4. Discussions..........................18

4.1. Interpretation of Results.......................18

4.2. Potential Biases and Limitations..........................20

5. Conclusionâ...........................22

6. References.........................................24

7. Tables and Figures.......................29

About this Master's Thesis

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School	Rollins School of Public Health
Department	Environmental Health
Degree	MPH
Submission	Master's Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Health Sciences, Public Health Remote Sensing Health Sciences, Epidemiology
Stichwort	forest fire epidemiology remote sensing air pollution public health open biomass burning fire inventories wildfire
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Yang, Liu, Emory University
Committee Members	Strickland, Matthew, University of Nevada, Reno
Partnering Agencies	Does not apply (no collaborating organization)

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