Multiscale Modeling of Traffic Pollutants in Urban Area – TRAFIPOLLU

The main objective of the TRAFIPOLLU research project is the development of dynamic modeling tools that determine the location of pollutants generated by road traffic in an urban environment. Such tools require variable spatial and temporal scale resolutions (from very fine to coarse). To that purpose, modeling chains have to be implemented at the various urban scales (street, city and district) to predict (i) the behavior of traffic, (ii) the emissions of pollutants, (iii) the dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere, (iv) deposition of pollutants and (v) transfer in water and soil. A key point of the modeling chains is the rescaling process. Proposed methods should be able to (i) refine the results produced by the modeling chains operating at large scale from the results produced by models with higher resolution (scale rising) and (ii) implement detailed models from existing on-field measures or from simulation results produced at larger scales (scale downing). More generally, the purpose of this project is to observe, analyze and model the pollutants across the different urban scales. Moreover, difficulty about collecting data that are required by the different modeling chain is stressed for each of the urban scale studied during the research project. Early reflections on this project showed the importance of producing a modeling chain at the finer scale (high resolution) for which the results would be validated. Therefore a part of this project is devoted to a wide-ranging experiment to measure the different involved physical behaviors and to track in space and in time the considered pollutants (NOx, COx, PAH, particles and metals). A first experimental site has been identified in the city of Noisy-Champs. It fulfills all the requirements related to the different studied systems (traffic, air, water and soil).