Science of the Total Environment 409 (2011) 2419–2429

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Science of the Total Environment

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / s c i t o t e n v

STEMS-Air: A simple GIS-based air pollution dispersion model for city-wide

exposure assessment
John Gulliver ⁎, David Briggs
MRC-HPA Centre for Environment and Health, Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Imperial College London, London, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Current methods of air pollution modelling do not readily meet the needs of air pollution mapping for short-
Received 12 July 2010 term (i.e. daily) exposure studies. The main limiting factor is that for those few models that couple with a GIS
Received in revised form 14 February 2011 there are insufficient tools for directly mapping air pollution both at high spatial resolution and over large
Accepted 1 March 2011
areas (e.g. city wide). A simple GIS-based air pollution model (STEMS-Air) has been developed for PM10 to
Available online 31 March 2011
meet these needs with the option to choose different exposure averaging periods (e.g. daily and annual).
Keywords:
STEMS-Air uses the grid-based FOCALSUM function in ArcGIS in conjunction with a fine grid of emission
Particulates sources and basic information on meteorology to implement a simple Gaussian plume model of air pollution
PM10 dispersion. STEMS-Air was developed and validated in London, UK, using data on concentrations of PM10 from
Exposure routinely available monitoring data. Results from the validation study show that STEMS-Air performs well in
Dispersion modelling predicting both daily (at four sites) and annual (at 30 sites) concentrations of PM10. For daily modelling,
GIS STEMS-Air achieved r2 values in the range 0.19–0.43 (p b 0.001) based solely on traffic-related emissions and
Air pollution r2 values in the range 0.41–0.63 (p b 0.001) when adding information on ‘background’ levels of PM10. For
annual modelling of PM10, the model returned r2 in the range 0.67–0.77 (P b 0.001) when compared with
monitored concentrations. The model can thus be used for rapid production of daily or annual city-wide air
pollution maps either as a screening process in urban air quality planning and management, or as the basis for
health risk assessment and epidemiological studies.
Crown Copyright © 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Traffic is a major source of elevated levels of air pollution in many
European cities. In large urban areas, in particular, variations in traffic
flows and speeds, meteorology, land use, and terrain lead to complex
patterns of air pollution (Wilson and Zawar-Reza, 2006). As such, even
relatively dense networks of routine air pollution monitoring are often
not sufficient to capture the spatial and temporal patterns of air
pollution exposures. Reliance on air pollution monitoring alone can
thus result in exposure misclassification. As an alternative means,
modelling can be used to estimate concentrations of air pollutants at
potentially any number of locations in time and space (Bellander et al.,
2001; Brauer et al., 2003; Briggs et al., 2000; Nyberg et al., 2000).
Indeed, air pollution models coupled with geographical information
systems (GIS) are increasingly used to meet the needs of exposure
assessment in epidemiological studies (Morra et al., 2006, 2009;
Jensen et al., 2009). The type of model applied in these studies largely
depends on the averaging period used in the exposure assessment and
⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Imperial
College London, St Mary's Campus, Norfolk Place, W2 1PG, UK. Tel.: +44 20 7594 5027.
E-mail address: j.gulliver@imperial.ac.uk (J. Gulliver).
the availability of data to feed the models. Land use regression
techniques, for example, are commonly used for modelling long-term
(i.e. annual) exposures (Hoek et al., 2008) but are not well suited to
dealing with short-term (e.g. daily) modelling as they do not allow for
the influence of meteorology. Dispersion models on the other hand are
well suited to short-term exposure modelling and can theoretically be
used to model for any averaging period if sufficient information is
available on source emissions and meteorology. Nevertheless,
although many different dispersion models have been developed,
very few have the capability for detailed air pollution mapping over
large study areas and are therefore adequate for exposure assessment
studies. One of the few models to meet these needs is ADMS-Urban
(Carruthers et al., 2000). This borrows functionality from ESRI's ArcGIS
to produce high resolution maps of air pollution which can be directly
used in GIS-based exposure assessment. Similar functionality has been
achieved with the AERMOD (Kesarkar et al., 2007), DUSTRAN (Allwine
et al., 2006) and OSPM (Berkowicz et al., 2008) models. Despite these
developments, however, there remain three limiting factors in
applying these models to exposure studies: 1) they have hungry
data demands (e.g. detailed data on source emissions and boundary
layer meteorology), 2) they are often expensive (i.e. typically between
£3 and £10k depending on the software and type of licence), and, most
importantly, and 3) they do not simultaneously deal with large

0048-9697/$ – see front matter. Crown Copyright © 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2011.03.004
2420 J. Gulliver, D. Briggs / Science of the Total Environment 409 (2011) 2419–2429

numbers of emission sources. Indeed, even if data demands can be met,

tens of model runs will usually be required to map air pollution at high
spatial resolution (i.e. b 50 m) over a large urban area.
Improved methods are therefore needed for estimation of
exposures at individual level and over large study populations,
particularly for short-term (e.g. daily) exposure periods. This paper
presents a GIS-based dispersion model (STEMS-Air: ‘Space Time
Exposure Modelling System — Air pollution’) that provides both a
means of simultaneously dealing with large numbers of emission
sources and mapping air pollution over large urban areas. The basic
framework for STEMS was first introduced by Gulliver and Briggs
(2005) which previously relied on third-party, conventional disper-
sion models for estimating air pollution concentrations. STEMS-Air is
intended to embed into the wider STEMS framework. The dispersion
model in STEMS-Air is implemented via a ‘moving-window’ approach
in ArcGIS with grid-based FOCALSUM routines. The grid-based
approach allows for very fast processing of large numbers of emission
sources and by using a fine grid (e.g. 10–20 metre grid cells) ensures Fig. 1. STEMS-Air: model components and data flow.
no significant loss of detail in the underlying emission source
geography. Although this functionality has been used in a handful of
environmental applications (Gerrard et al., 2001; Loh et al., 1996) it levels of regional and long-range (i.e. trans-boundary) particulate air
has seen remarkably little use in air pollution modelling. Collins pollution Each of the mandatory model components and related data
(1998) probably represents the first example of using FOCALSUM for is described, separately, below.
mapping air pollution. In a study in Huddersfield, UK, a distance-
weighting approach was used to sum the contributions of traffic- 2.1.1. Emissions model
related air pollution sources within a fixed diameter ‘kernel’ around The emissions model applies standard DMRB emissions factors
each receptor (i.e. grid cell). The model was validated for NO2 (DEFRA, 2007) to traffic flows (volume and speed), by type of vehicle
(r2 = 0.67) using data from routine air pollution monitoring sites. In (i.e. light or heavy), to produce emission rates (g/m/s) of a given
one of the other few published examples, Loibl and Orthofer (2001) pollutant, for each road link. To account for time-varying traffic flows,
used a similar approach to model NO2 across Austria on a 250 metre emission factor profiles can be applied by hour of the day, and days of
grid. Again models were seen to compare well with data on monitored the week, for specific road links or geographical areas. Where detailed
concentrations: 54% (72 sites) and 76% (101 sites) of predictions fell ‘local’ emissions profiles do not exist, a default set of emission factors
within ± 15 μg/m3 and ± 25 μg/m3 of monitored concentrations, are provided that can apply to the whole road network. The (vector)
respectively. To date, however, the use of FOCALSUM appears to be road geography is subsequently converted into one or more fine grids
limited to simple distance-weighted approaches. Vienneau et al. (e.g. 10 or 20 metre grid cells) of emission rates (depending on the
(2009) used FOCALSUM in ArcGIS with a fixed set of ‘distance weights’ availability of time- and space-varying emissions profiles) for each
to account for the influence of emissions around each receptor (i.e. grid pollutant.
cell receptor) to model concentrations of NO2 across Europe on a 1 km
grid. This approach did not however take account of the influence of
2.1.2. Meteorological pre-processor
meteorology on pollutant dispersion. In this paper the basic approach
Atmospheric conditions in the model are determined by applying
is extended to using a Gaussian dispersion model coupled with
Pasquill (1961) stability categories. The modified Pasquill classifica-
FOCALSUM routines. The paper describes the methods used to develop
tion (Davies and Singh, 1985), as shown in Table 1, is essentially a
the model in a GIS and related data sets, presents the results from a
function of wind speed (generally measured at about 10 m above
validation study using routinely available monitoring data, and makes
ground) and incoming solar radiation. There are a number of other
observations on potential improvements to the approach for further
schemes for assessing atmospheric conditions (Mohan and Siddiqui,
development work. The model is intended for predicting concentra-
1998) but they require measurement of temperature and/or wind
tions averaged over periods of at least 1 day and is not aimed at
speeds at two heights which are not routinely and freely available.
replicating the more advanced models that have been developed with
Incoming solar radiation is determined by the angle between the
the capability of predicting hourly concentrations of different
sun's rays and the Earth's surface, commonly referred to as the zenith
pollutants.
angle (ZN), and the amount of cloud (oktas). Zenith angles vary
for any location on the Earth's surface by time of year and time of day
2. Material and methods

2.1. Model development Table 1

Modified Pasquill stability classes.
STEMS-Air operates is two modes: short-term (daily) and long- Davies and Singh, 1985.
term (annual) to fit with the requirements of many epidemiological Wind speed Daytime incoming solar radiation Within 1 h Night-time
studies. The outputs from short-term mode can be averaged to longer (m/s) (W/m2) before sunset cloud amount
periods (e.g. weeks or months) outside the programme (e.g. in Excel). or after (oktas)
STEMS-Air comprises four model components: 1) an emissions sunrise
Strong Moderate Slight Overcast 0–3 4–7 8
model, 2) a meteorological pre-processor, 3) a GIS-based air pollution (N 600) (300–600) (b 300)
dispersion model, and 4) a GIS-based exposure assessment tool. Fig. 1 ≤ 2.0 A A–B B C D F–G F D
shows the overall structure of STEMS-Air with input and flow of data. 2.1–3.0 A–B B C C D F E D
There is also an optional component where data on ‘background’ 3.1–5.0 B B–C C C D E D D
monitored concentrations can be added from sites (e.g. rural) that are 5.1–6.0 C C–D D D D D D D
≤ ≥ 6.0 C D D D D D D D
not significantly influenced by local source emissions but represent
 J. Gulliver, D. Briggs / Science of the Total Environment 409 (2011) 2419–2429
(i.e. hour angle) and can be found by Eq. (1) (Mohan and Siddiqui,
1998)
cosZN = sinϕ sinδ + cosϕ cosδ cosω
Where δ is the solar declination angle, ϕ is the latitude, and ω is the
hour angle.
Declination angle (δ) is in the range ± 0.13π radians, or ± 23.4°,
and can be found by Eq. (2) (Campbell and Norman, 1998).
sinδ = 0:39785 sin½4:871 + 0:0172J + 0:03345
× sinð 6:2238 + 0:0175J 
Where J is the calendar day (i.e. Julian day) — with J = 1 on 1st
January and J = 365 on 31st December (or J = 366 in a leap year).
The hour angle (ω) is in the range ± 180°and can be found by the
following formula (3):
cosω = 0:0833πðt−tsn Þ
where t is the hour of the day and tsn is the time of the solar noon.
Finally, the amount of cloud cover is used to attenuate the solar
radiation calculated under clear sky conditions.
The meteorological pre-processor in STEMS-Air therefore uses
data on day of the year, hour of the day, wind speed (m/s), and cloud
cover to calculate, for each time period (e.g. hour), the likely incoming
solar radiation (Watts/m2) (N.B. The meteorological inputs required
are routinely monitored by national meteorological agencies (e.g.
Meteo-France, UK Met. Office) at a height of about 10 m above
ground). The urban sites in this study have weather sensors
positioned at about 5 m above ground. The resulting values for solar
radiation are used in conjunction with wind speed to determine the
stability classes, as shown in Table 1. A ‘MET’ file is subsequently
produced and exported to the GIS containing day of the year, hour of
the day, wind speed, wind direction and stability class. Users can
alternatively import their own data, based on local measurement or
other models, if appropriate.
2.1.3. Air pollution dispersion model
The STEMS-Air pollution model is based on the standard solution
of a Gaussian model of dispersion at ground level (Williams, 1990;
Venkatram and Horst, 2006). Contributions to the pollutant concen-
tration from sources along the wind direction vector are found by
solving Eq. (4):

 
Q 1 H 2
C ðx; y; zÞ = exp −
πUσz 2 σz
Contributions to pollutant concentrations from emission sources
that lie at an angle (θ N 0) to the wind direction vector are found by
solving Eq. (5):
"
 !2 #
Q 1 H 2 y as standard, considered within a 300 metre buffer around each
C ðx; y; zÞ = exp − + ð5Þ
πUσy σz 2 σz σy
where C is the pollutant concentration at location x, y, and z, Q is the
emission source rate (g/m/s), U is the wind speed (m/s), σz is the
standard deviation of the vertical concentration in the plume, σy is the
standard deviation of the horizontal concentration in the plume, H is
the height of the release of the emissions (e.g. 1 m above ground for
ground-level sources), and Y is the distance along the normal from
emission source to the plume centreline.
The stability categories, determined in the meteorological pre-
processor, along with wind speed and wind direction, are used as the
basis for calculating the vertical (σz) and horizontal (σy) dispersion
parameters. These are applied using a formulation of the dispersion
2421
curves from Briggs (1973) by Venkatram et al. (2005) and Venkatram
and Horst (2006) for application of ‘short-range’ dispersion models in
urban areas. For unstable conditions (A and B stability classes) the
ð1Þ following parameters are applied:
−1 = 2
σz = 0:24xð1 + 0:001xÞ
0:32x ð6Þ
σy =
ð1 + 0:0004xÞ−1 = 2
where x(m) is downwind distance from the source.
ð2Þ
For neutral and stable conditions (C to G classes) the following
parameters are applied:
−1 = 2
σz = 0:14xð1 + 0:0003xÞ
−1 = 2 ð7Þ
σz = 0:16xð1 + 0:0004xÞ
where x(m) is downwind distance from the source.
STEMS-Air implements the dispersions model with FOCALSUM
ð3Þ GRID routines programmed in ArcGIS with Arc Macro Language (AML).
This approach has two main advantages over traditional approaches
for line sources. Firstly, it overcomes the problem of having to derive
an analytical expression for the concentration that accounts for the
line source as a whole (Venkatram and Horst, 2006; Luhar and Patil,
1989). Secondly, grid-based routines are generally very fast GIS
operations and so large numbers of sources and receptors can
simultaneously be modelled to allow rapid production of city-wide
air pollution surfaces. This is of particular benefit when city-wide
exposure assessment is needed for large numbers of individual days
(e.g. during air pollution episodes which may last for up to 10 days and
re-occur several times in 1 year).
Many conventional dispersion models would require a minimum
of between 25 and 100 model runs, depending on the number of
emission sources (e.g. road segments) and size of the study area, to
undertake city-wide exposure assessment. This may become very
time-consuming work, which requires expertise to tessellate the
emission sources into a manageable set of model runs. In most
models, simply applying a regular grid (e.g. 2 km resolution) over a
city to tessellate the emission sources would result in a very large
number of model runs (c. 150–200 model runs in London).
Furthermore, many receptors (e.g. point locations of residential
addresses for exposure estimates) would have to be duplicated across
several model runs as they may lie on the boundary between the
‘zones’ used to tessellate the emission sources.
ArcGIS offers a number of options in FOCALSUM that all automatically
create summary statistics (sum, mean, median, standard deviation) for
those cells falling within a range of different buffer sizes and window
ð4Þ
shapes (e.g. circle, annulus, rectangle, wedge) around each central
processing cell [N.B. These are, in essence, pre-programmed DOCELL
operations]. FOCALSUM can also deal with irregular shapes by providing
a ‘kernel file’ with individually referenced cells.
STEMS-Air uses the FOCALSUM routine with the ‘wedge’ option.
Contributions to air pollution concentrations from traffic sources are,
receptor. In most cases the contributions from sources outside this
distance are sufficiently small to be treated as ‘background’ air
pollution within an urban area. Indeed, an analysis of the contribution
from traffic source emissions summed within different buffer sizes
(i.e. 100 metre concentric rings up to 1000 m) at various receptor
sites in London showed that the total contribution beyond 300 m was
b 2% of predicted concentrations. In some situations, however, traffic
levels beyond 300 m are sufficiently high (e.g. motorways) that the
buffer distance around a receptor needs to be extended. The user can
achieve this by adding an additional buffer (e.g. up to 500 m from
source) in the programme.
Prior to model development, regression analysis was used to
determine the optimum internal angle of the inner and outer wedges.
2422 J. Gulliver, D. Briggs / Science of the Total Environment 409 (2011) 2419–2429
A series of wedges at 5 degree intervals between 20 and 60° were
applied to the emissions grid using FOCALSUM, Wedges of 45° were
seen to provide best performance in predicting monitored
concentrations.
The procedure for implementing the programme in GRID is
illustrated in Fig. 2 as follows:
1. For each receptor, create a FOCALSUM ‘wedge’ along the line of the
wind direction with an internal angle of 45° and a radius of 300 m.
Create two outer wedges adjacent to the inner wedge each with
internal angles of 45° and of radius 40 m. The purpose of the outer
wedges is to account for the relatively small contributions likely to
arise from neighbouring source cells that are positioned normal to
the wind direction.
2. Intersect a series of circular buffers at 20 metre intervals (i.e. to
match the resolution of the emissions grid and thus retain the
highest level of precision in the dispersion modelling) with the
wedges to create segments inside each wedge.
3. Using FOCALSUM, intersect each wedge and segment with the
source emissions geometry (i.e. gridded emissions).
4. Sum the emissions within each segment and then apply the
dispersion calculation, using Eq. (4) for the inner wedge and Eq. (5)
for the outer wedge. Finally sum the contribution from each wedge
to provide a modelled PM10 concentration at the receptor.
Ideally, separate calculations would be made between each
emission grid cell and receptor but this becomes a very protracted
process to implement when large numbers of cells are used and
particularly when the orientation (i.e. due to wind direction) of the
reference cells change in relation to the central processing cell. The
use of FOCALSUM is therefore somewhat of a compromise, but this
approach nonetheless remains relatively fast for dealing with large
numbers of emission sources.
2.1.4. Exposure assessment
Exposure assessment can be performed for a series of points (e.g.
residential address locations) by entering co-ordinates into the
model, or for areas (e.g. census tracts) by their intersection with
maps of air pollution from STEMS-Air. In grid mapping mode there is
Fig. 2. STEMS-Air dispersion modelling procedure.
no limitation to the spatial resolution of the grid but clearly processing
time will significantly increase with finer spatial resolution (e.g.
10 m). Daily or annual estimates of exposure can be determined in
point or grid mapping modes. Resulting data can be exported as
standard delimited text files for further analysis (e.g. epidemiological
analysis or health assessment).
2.2. Model application
Modelling was carried out in London, UK, because data on road
geography and traffic flow/composition are readily available from the
London Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (LAEI), and also there is a
relatively dense network of air pollution monitoring sites for model
validation. PM10 was chosen as the reference pollutant because of the
strong body of epidemiological evidence linking particulates with
negative effects on health (Brunekreef and Holgate, 2002; Dockery
and Pope, 2006). STEMS-Air was implemented for both short-term
(i.e. daily) and long-term (i.e. annual) air pollution modelling. Short-
term modelling was undertaken for July to December 2007 as data on
co-located hourly traffic composition and speeds, meteorological data,
and air pollution monitoring were available during this period at a
number of sites. Long-term modelling was applied to 2001–2003 as
this period represented the best coverage of air pollution monitoring
sites (n = 30) with complete data records across three consecutive
years.
2.2.1. Short-term modelling
Data from co-located traffic and air pollution monitoring at six
roadside/kerbside sites (from the London Air Quality Network) were
kindly provided by King's College London and used as the primary
basis for testing and validation of STEMS-Air in relation to short-term
(i.e. daily) modelling. The data covered 184 days between 1st July and
31st December 2007 and comprised hourly traffic composition for
different vehicle categories (i.e. car, motorcycles, buses, heavy goods
etc.), counts of the number of vehicles in each category by vehicle
speed in 10 km/h intervals, monitored concentrations of PM10, and
wind speed and wind direction from meteorological data co-located at
some of the sites. Days related to unusual events (e.g. ‘bonfire week’ in
 J. Gulliver, D. Briggs / Science of the Total Environment 409 (2011) 2419–2429
November) and days with unusual traffic patterns (e.g. the Christmas
period from mid-December) were subsequently removed to leave a
total of 149 days of data.
Data were screened for completeness and reduced to the following
four sites that had good simultaneous coverage in traffic and
monitored concentrations of PM10: Brent 4 (BT4), Greenwhich 9
(GR9), Hackney 6 (HK6), and Tower Hamlets 4 (TH4). Fig. 3 shows a
map of the locations of these sites. All sites are located alongside busy
urban roads and in relatively clear suburban settings, with the
exception of HK6 which is in a street canyon with multi-storey
buildings. Also shown are the location and type (i.e. kerbside, roadside,
urban background, suburban) of sites used in long-term modelling
(see below).
Data on road geography and traffic (on roads except those adjacent
to the traffic monitoring site) within a 300 metre buffer of each
monitoring sites were taken from the LAEI. The LAEI contains data on
annual average daily traffic (AADT) and composition (number of
light and heavy vehicles) for over 63,000 individual road links within
the Greater London Area. Each link also is attributed with a single,
average vehicle speed that applies to all vehicle categories. Road
geography is based on data from Ordnance Survey Master-Map© and
has a ground precision of b 1 m and includes individual carriageways and
roundabouts.
The emissions model was run with separate emission factors for
different vehicle speeds and categories (i.e. light/heavy) on all roads
falling in a 300 metre circular buffer around each of the four
monitoring sites. Emissions were summed to provide total emission
rates of PM10 on each road link. The time-varying traffic data from
each monitoring site was then analysed to provide weightings (i.e.
‘local emission profiles’ in Fig. 1) for each hour of the day and day of
the week. As Fig. 4 shows, the emission profiles vary both between site
in the magnitude of weights and in hour-to-hour pattern, but
generally the profiles naturally fall into three groups: weekdays,
Saturdays, Sundays. The exception is at Hackney 6 which has a
Fig. 3. Air pollution monitoring sites used in the validation study.
2423
different pattern of emissions during the evening period on Fridays.
The profiles were assumed to be applicable to all other roads within
300 m of the traffic monitoring site as information on time-varying
factors for other roads in area surrounding each site was not available.
There was no information available for time-varying vehicles speeds,
so the long-term average speed at each site was applied to all hours
for all roads surrounding each site. Emission weights were subse-
quently applied to the baseline emissions data using the profiles in
Fig. 4 to provide time-varying emission rates on all source emission
grids.
Co-located hourly data on wind speed and wind direction were
available with good coverage at all sites except for BT4 which was
substituted with data from TH4 — the nearest similar site type.
Data on cloud cover from Heathrow Airport, which is the nearest
available site, were downloaded from the British Atmospheric Data
Centre (www.badc.ac.uk). These data were linked to the data on wind
speed and direction and entered into the meteorological pre-
processor to provide hourly data on atmospheric conditions in
STEMS-Air. STEMS-Air was then run for each of the four monitoring
sites to predict daily average concentrations of PM10 (μg/m3). The
model was run at 1-hour time resolution to account for the effects of
variability in meteorology on individual days (N.B. the concentration
based on 24 hourly values is not the same as meteorological variables
averaged over 1 day).
2.2.2. Long-term modelling
Data on monitored concentrations of annual average PM10
between 2001 and 2003, for a total of 53 locations (including site
coordinates and site type), were downloaded from the website of The
London Air Quality Network (http://www.londonair.org). These years
covered a period when relatively minor intervention took place in
opening/closing of monitoring sites and thus provided a good basis for
year-to-year comparison between sites. A reduced list of sites were
subsequently produced (n = 30) to include only those sites that
2424 J. Gulliver, D. Briggs / Science of the Total Environment 409 (2011) 2419–2429

Fig. 4. Time-varying emission weights for daily air pollution modelling sites.

passed the following criteria: data were available for at least 75% of
days within each year, data were denoted as fully ratified, and site
coordinates provided on the website could be verified or adjusted
using satellite imagery from Google Earth. These monitoring sites
were used as the basis for modelling annual average PM10 from
STEMS-Air.
Data on traffic flows and composition were taken from the London
Atmospheric Emissions Inventory (LAEI) for each year corresponding
to the above-mentioned air pollution monitoring data. Average
emission rates were then computed in the emissions model for all
roads falling within 300 m of the 30 air pollution monitoring sites.
Data on hourly meteorological parameters (wind speed, wind
direction, cloud cover) were downloaded for Heathrow Airport
from BADC for the period 1st January 2001 to 31st December 2003.
These data were then entered into the meteorological pre-processor
to obtain data on atmospheric stability for each hour of each day.
The resulting data were then summarised as frequency data: the
number of occasions (e.g. hours during the year) on which the same
combination of meteorological variables were recorded (e.g. number
of hours during the year with frequency of wind direction of 30°,
wind speed of 2 m/s, and cloud cover equals 8 oktas). This method
reduces the hourly data by about 8-fold to speed up the model
runs with no loss of information as the predictions for each line of
met data are averaged to provide an annual mean concentration in
long-term modelling. STEMS-Air was then run to model annual
mean concentrations of PM10 for the 30 monitoring sites shown in
Fig. 3.
shown in Fig. 3. Model performance was assessed on the basis of the
validation analysis by computing adjusted r2, the root mean square
error (RMSE) and fractional bias (FB) — defined for each site as:
 
Cp −Co
FB =  
0:5 Cp + Co
where Co is the mean observed concentration and Cp is the mean
predicted concentration.
3.1. Short-term modelling
Comparisons between monitored and predicted concentrations of
daily average PM10 were made for the four sites shown in Fig. 3.
Summary statistics for model performance are shown in Table 2 and
scatterplots between monitored and predicted concentrations at each
site are shown in Fig. 5. Modelling was done for nearly all of the days
available for comparison with monitored concentrations except in the
case of GR9 where only 54 days of monitored concentrations were
available.
Table 2
Summary statistics for modelled daily traffic-related PM10 (μg/m3).

Site Adjusted r2 RMSE FB N (days)

3. Results BT4 — Brent 4 0.43 17.55 − 0.84 140
GR9 — Greenwich 9 0.43 18.01 − 1.37 54
Model validation was undertaken by comparing predicted PM10 HK6 — Hackney 6 0.19 17.85 − 1.06 143
TH4 — Tower Hamlets 4 0.40 29.86 − 1.31 144
concentrations with monitored PM10 concentrations at the sites
 J. Gulliver, D. Briggs / Science of the Total Environment 409 (2011) 2419–2429
Fig. 5. Scatter-plots of modelled (local traffic) versus monitored concentrations of PM10 (μg/m3), July to December 2007.
As Table 2 shows, model performance is similar for BT4, GR9 and
TH4 with adjusted r2 values of 0.43, 0.43, and 0.40 respectively
(p b 0.001), with the site at HK6 having a lower r2 of 0.19 (p b 0.001).
The lower r2 at HK6 can perhaps be explained by this site being
characterised by a continuous street canyon, the effects of which are
not considered in STEMS-Air. Values of RMSE and FB are relatively
high for all sites, as would be expected when only including the local,
traffic component. Values of FB lie in the range − 0.84 to − 1.37 — a FB
value of − 1.00 represents under-prediction by a factor of 3. For both
measures, results are weakest at TH4 with under-prediction by about
a factor of 4 and RMSE of 29.86 μg/m3.
The results are based on comparisons made against monitored
PM10 which includes all sources (e.g. traffic, secondary particulates,
wind-blown soil and dust etc.), so in terms of the explained variation in
traffic-related PM10 the model is likely performing relatively well.
Indeed, examination of the ratio of PM10 concentrations between
those at rural, urban background and roadside sites (by the authors)
showed that, on average, local traffic-related emissions account for no
more than 10–30% of monitored concentrations at urban background
locations, and 30–50% at urban roadside locations: the remainder is
attributable to regional pollution, present at the remote rural sites. In
order to consider the influence of regional background PM10 here,
therefore, daily mean concentrations of PM10 from rural monitoring
data were added to the modelled predictions from STEMS-Air. Rural
PM10 concentrations were taken as the average of data from the only
two rural monitoring stations in the south east of England: Harwell
(70 km due west of central London), and Rochester (60 km east-
south-east of central London).
2425
The results of combining modelled concentrations from the local
model of traffic and ‘background’ concentrations are shown in Table 3
and Fig. 6. As can be seen, model performance variably improves (r2:
0.41–0.61, p b 0.001) at all sites as a result of adding the data on rural
monitored concentrations. The largest improvement in terms of r2 is at
HK6: r2 = 0.41. Values of RMSE and FB are, as would be expected,
lowered at all sites. RMSE is still high at TH4 (12.75 μg/m3) compared
to the other sites (7.48 μg/m3–8.66 μg/m3) but greatly reduced with
the addition of daily mean ‘background’ PM10 concentrations.
Including rural concentrations of PM10 in STEMS-Air results in
significant improvement in model performance.
3.2. Long-term modelling
Comparisons between predicted and monitored concentrations of
annual average PM10 were made for the 30 sites with data available
between 2001 and 2003. Annual mean concentrations of ‘background’
air pollution were obtained from Harwell for each year and were
added to the modelled concentrations — there were insufficient data
to consider the rural site at Rochester.
Table 4 shows the summary statistics for performance of STEMS-Air
with the addition of concentrations of ‘background’ PM10.
As can be seen, models perform well in each year (r2: 0.67–0.77)
with the best result in terms of r2, RMSE and FB for 2001 (0.77, 3.32, −
0.08, respectively). Results are weakest for 2003, especially in terms of
RMSE: 10.75 μg/m3. It should be noted, however, that concentrations
were generally inflated in 2003 compared to the other years due to a
number of air pollution episodes, with four periods of unusually high
2426 J. Gulliver, D. Briggs / Science of the Total Environment 409 (2011) 2419–2429

Table 3 Table 4
Summary statistics for modelled local, traffic-related and regional ‘background’ PM10 Performance statistics for predictions of annual average of PM10 (μg/m3), 2001–2003.
(μg/m3).
Year Adjusted r2 RMSE FB N (sites)
Site Adjusted r2 RMSE FB N (days)
2001 0.77 3.32 − 0.08 30
BT4 — Brent 4 0.61 7.54 0.16 140 2002 0.68 4.98 − 0.20 30
GR9 — Greenwich 9 0.58 8.66 0.22 54 2003 0.67 10.75 − 0.37 30
HK6 — Hackney 6 0.41 7.48 0.16 143
TH4 — Tower Hamlets 4 0.53 12.75 − 0.19 144

background/suburban) based on the description of site types from the

PM10 levels in south east England. August 2003, for example, saw a
period of 10 days when daily mean concentrations of PM10 exceeded
50 μg/m3 (Stedman, 2004).
As demonstrated by the negative values of FB, the model under-
predicts in all years, but only very slightly in 2001 (FB = − 0.08).
Furthermore, there is over-prediction for some, mostly background sites
in 2001. This is due to the rural concentrations being higher than levels
recorded at background sites in London, which likely come from higher
proportions of non-anthropogenic sources at the rural site.
To improve model performance, linear regression was used to
calibrate the model predictions to the monitored concentrations for
each year. Summary statistics for the calibrated models are show in
Table 5. Fractional bias is not included as zero mean bias is implied by
a linear regression. Fig. 7 shows scatterplots of modelled versus
monitored concentrations for the same data with sites classified as
either roadside (i.e. roadside/kerbside) or background (i.e. urban
national air quality archive (www.airquality.co.uk).
As Table 5 indeed shows, the calibrated model reduces RMSE to
between about one third and one half of the levels found from the un-
calibrated model (Table 4). Also noteworthy is that the constant (i.e.
background) from the regression is broadly similar to that of the average
concentration from the rural monitoring sites in 2001 (16.76 μg/m3)
and 2002 (18.78 μg/m3), but in 2003 the regression yields a background
value of 25.61 μg/m3 compared to the rural concentration of
20.31 μg/m3 at the rural site. Only three of the London sites had
monitored values lower than the constant from the regression for 2003.
The coefficients (i.e. slope) of the regression are 2.92, 3.92, and 5.79 for
2001, 2002 and 2003, respectively. Given the values of the constant in
the regression, and notwithstanding that some sources are not included
in the modelling (e.g. wind-blown soil and dust, and vehicle tyre and
brake wear), these values imply that STEMS-Air systematically under-
predicts annual concentrations of traffic-related PM10. It must be borne
in mind, however, that meteorological parameters were only available

Fig. 6. Scatter-plots of modelled (local traffic + rural) versus monitored concentrations of PM10 (μg/m3), July to December 2007.
 J. Gulliver, D. Briggs / Science of the Total Environment 409 (2011) 2419–2429 2427

Table 5 by about three-fold if using wind speed from less exposed urban
Calibration models for predictions of annual average PM10 (μg/m3), 2001–2003. locations.
Year a(x) Constant SEE RMSE N (sites) Fig. 7 shows that STEMS-Air reasonably well explains the
magnitude of variation in the traffic contributions to concentrations
2001 2.92 18.12 1.85 1.90 30
2002 3.92 18.04 2.19 2.34 30 of PM10. There are some anomalies to this which may be due to the
2003 5.79 25.61 3.31 3.47 30 exclusion of other, local (i.e. domestic, industrial) sources in the
model. As can be seen in Fig. 7, one site, Marylebone (kerbside), has
consistently higher concentrations than all other sites. Clearly this site
from Heathrow Airport which is relatively exposed compared to the is influential on the performance of the model in terms of r2. To look at
locations of the air pollution monitoring sites in London. The typically the effect of this site on overall model performance, values of r2 were
higher levels of wind speed recorded at Heathrow Airport result in obtained when excluding Marylebone from the analysis. As expected,
smaller modelled concentrations from STEMS-Air. Moreover, this values of r2 are reduced but the results were still seen to be good in all
magnitude of under-prediction was not seen at any of the sites in the years (r2: 0.56–0.67, p b 0.001).
short-term modelling where meteorological parameters were more For comparative purposes, modelling was also undertaken with
representative of ‘urban’ conditions. To look at this area in more detail, ADMS-Urban (Carruthers et al., 2000), a proprietary dispersion model,
the short-term modelling was done for a second time by substituting for the same validation data described above, replicating as much as
wind speed at each of the four sites (BT4, GR9, HK6 and TH4) with wind possible the inputs (i.e. emission rates and factors, meteorology) used
speed from the meteorological site at Heathrow. Over the 6-month in STEMS-Air. ADMS-Urban was thus offered information on traffic
period from July to December 2007 average wind speeds at Heathrow emissions (as vectors) within a 300-metre circular buffer of each
were approximately three times higher than those found at the urban monitoring site, and data on background concentrations from the
sites and resulting predictions of PM10 were on average 67.5% lower same rural monitoring stations. Tables 6 and 7 show results of the
than seen when using local wind speed from the four sites. This suggests validation analysis for ADMS-Urban for short-term modelling and
that the coefficients of the regression shown in Table 5 might be reduced long-term modelling, respectively. ADMS-Urban did not produce data,

Fig. 7. Scatterplots of modelled versus monitored annual average PM10 concentrations, 2001–2003.
2428 J. Gulliver, D. Briggs / Science of the Total Environment 409 (2011) 2419–2429

Table 6 (Hoek et al., 2008) for modelling annual mean concentrations of

Summary statistics for modelled local, traffic-related and regional ‘background’ PM10
(μg/m3) from ADMS-Urban.
Site Adjusted r2 RMSE FB
BT4 — Brent 4 0.46 6.94 − 0.06
GR9 — Greenwich 9 0.54 8.37 0.15
HK6 — Hackney 6 0.30 6.60 0.07
TH4 — Tower Hamlets 4 0.34 15.73 − 0.31
due to incomplete information on meteorology, for two of the days
modelled at BT4 and TH4 (see Table 6).
As shown in Table 6, in terms of r2 the performance of ADMS-Urban
(r2: 0.30–0.54) is weaker than seen for STEMS-Air (r2: 0.41–0.61),
though nearly the same for GR9. Conversely, however, ADMS-Urban
performs marginally better than STEMS-Air in terms of RMSE and FB at
three out of four sites. Correlations between modelled and monitored
data and other measures of performance should, however, improve for
ADMS-Urban if more detailed data on meteorology (e.g. temperature,
rainfall, and air pressure), information on street canyons, and models
of terrain are offered. For long-term modelling, as shown in Table 7, in
terms of r2 ADMS-Urban (r2: 0.71–0.77) performs slightly better than
STEMS-Air (r2: 0.67–0.77) for two (2002 and 2003) out of the 3 years.
Values of RMSE and FB are broadly the same for the two models.
4. Discussion
The validation results presented suggest that STEMS-Air can be
applied to both short-term and long-term modelling of PM10.
Attempts to make comparisons between these results and those
from other studies are difficult, however, simply because particle
validation studies are not available for many models (Holmes and
Morawska, 2006). There are a few notable examples that have
evaluated the performance for dispersion models in predicting daily
average PM10. In a study in Christchurch, New Zealand, Wilson and
Zawar-Reza (2006), for example, compared predictions of daily
average PM10 from TAPM (The Air Pollution Model) with monitored
PM10 concentrations at 12 monitoring sites over 59 days during the
winter of 2003–2004. Results were reported in terms of RMSE and
correlation (r). Generally higher values of RMSE were seen than those
reported here, with 10 out of the 12 sites yielding values N 30 μg/m3,
though the range of monitored concentrations were similar to this
study. Correlations are not directly comparable but were broadly
weaker (mostly in the range r = 0.4–0.5) than those seen in this study.
Gokhale and Raokhande (2008) compared results from three different
models (CALINE3, CAL3QHC, and M-GFLSM) against daily mean
concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 at a single traffic site in the city of
Guwahati, India, over 4 months during the winter of 2005/2006. The
study reported fractional bias between ± 0.01 and ± 0.5 for the three
models. Again these results are broadly comparable with those
presented here when the ‘background’ air pollution model is applied
(FB: − 0.19 to 0.22).
Although dispersion modelling remains the only viable basis for
short-term modelling of air pollution exposures, for long-term (i.e.
annual) modelling there are a range of available techniques (Jerrett
et al., 2005). Of the more advanced techniques, land use regression
(LUR) modelling has been used widely in Europe and North America
Table 7
Performance statistics for predictions of annual average of PM10 (μg/m3) from ADMS-
Urban, 2001–2003.
particulates and NO2. In general, LUR models have been seen to
perform well with validation studies yielding r2 values typically in the
N (days) range 0.5 to 0.7 (Hoek et al., 2008). The results for LUR models are
138 broadly similar to those obtained here, but STEMS-Air, apart from in
54 all likelihood still taking longer to produce modelled exposures, has
143 three distinct advantages over LUR models. Firstly, STEMS-Air is
142
transferable between study areas whereas LUR models, which tend to
be built with local source emissions data (e.g. traffic flows, road
geography, land use) and are calibrated to local air pollution
monitoring data, may not transfer well (Hoek et al., 2008). Secondly,
STEMS-Air can directly provide modelled concentrations that reflect
the spatial effects of yearly patterns in meteorology, unlike LUR
models which have to rely on some temporally static emissions data
(e.g. land use) and can only be universally calibrated to monitoring
data for each year. Thirdly, STEMS-Air is directly based on emissions,
so can be used to estimate future concentrations (e.g. under different
policy scenarios), or to carry out hind-casts for past (different)
emission situations. Given these advantages, and with its simple
implementation and capacity for modelling city-wide air pollution,
STEMS-Air thus represents a useful alternative to LUR modelling in
long-term exposure assessment studies.
Although STEMS-Air was seen to generally perform well, it needs
to be recognised that it does not provide a substitute for formal
dispersion modelling where detailed data are needed for a small
number of locations and sources. Its role is essentially as a screening
model or mapping tool, when high resolution and time-varying
estimates of air pollution are needed across large study areas or
populations. A number of potential improvements could nevertheless
be made to address some of the inherent weaknesses in the current
model formulation. Firstly, the current version of the model does not
consider local, non-traffic sources (i.e. domestic, industrial). In the UK,
estimated annual emissions from these sources are routinely available
on a 1 km grid (e.g. National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory), with
explicit point locations for large industrial sources (e.g. stacks). For
area sources (e.g. 1 km grids) it would be possible add a ‘box model’ to
STEMS-Air similar to those included in other dispersion models such
as ADMS; for point sources emissions, an adaptation of the general
Gaussian dispersion model cited above could be made to account for
source height. A second improvement would be the addition of a
simple street canyon model, such as the one described by European
Environment Agency at http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/
TEC11a/page014.html. A canyon model would require data on, or a
surrogate for, building heights which have traditionally been difficult
to obtain/derive. From 2009, however, Light Detection and Ranging
Data (LIDAR) (Cici et al., 2009) from which building heights can be
derived will be freely available (for research purposes) in the UK for
large conurbations. LIDAR could theoretically be used to provide data
on streets with canyons of continuous and significant height. The data
could directly be added into STEMS-Air via a second grid to act as a
reference to where a canyon model should be applied. The
meteorological sub-model used in STEMS-Air is also relatively simple,
and does not make use of the more advanced algorithms that have
become available in recent years (e.g. to describe boundary layer
conditions). Enhancement of this component would be possible, but
at the expense of increasing data demands. Finally, further work
should include modelling and validation of range of pollutants which
might be required for air quality management and exposure
assessment, including key urban pollutants such as NO2 and CO.
5. Conclusions

Year Adjusted r2 RMSE FB N (sites)

A GIS-based air pollution dispersion model has been developed and
2001 0.77 5.04 − 0.20 30 applied in London for daily and annual modelling of PM10. In broad
2002 0.71 3.81 − 0.10 30 terms, the model was seen to produce good predictions of monitored
2003 0.73 11.06 − 0.38 30
concentrations for different time periods and in at different locations. A
 J. Gulliver, D. Briggs / Science of the Total Environment 409 (2011) 2419–2429
number of improvements to the model and directions for future work
have been cited. The result of the study is a simple dispersion model and
exposure assessment tool that can be implemented for screening and
mapping purposes by lay users. Incorporation of the ArcGIS FOCALSUM
routine, at the heart of the model, allows relatively quick production of
high resolution, city-wide air pollution maps. The maps and exposure
assessment tool could be applied in epidemiological studies and health
risk assessment looking at links between air pollution and human health
over daily or longer-term (e.g. annual) periods.
Acknowledgements
The research presented here was initially developed as part of the
EU 5th Framework Programme on Health Effects and Risks of
Transport Systems (HEARTS), led by the World Health Organisation
(Rome), with further development taking place as part of the EU 7th
Framework Programme on GENeric European Sustainable Informa-
tion Space for environment (GENESIS). The authors wish to thank
King's College London for providing data on traffic flows and speeds
and meteorology from six roadside air pollution monitoring sites in
London.
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