Optimal distribution of air pollution sources

Abstract

The problem of determining the optimal distribution of air pollutant sources in an airshed is defined. Essentially one wishes to allocate a given total quantity of source emissions over an airshed, subject perhaps to prior zoning decisions. Two cases are considered, the first in which the distribution of sources is continuous, and the second in which the source is concentrated at a point. An airshed simulation model which relates emission strengths to atmospheric concentrations is assumed to be available for the airshed. Since the air pollution model may not have a readily available analytical solution, an iterative procedure is necessary in general to solve the optimization problem. Iterative algorithms based on the method of steepest descent are developed for the continuous distribution and point source cases. A simple example of optimally locating an infinite crosswind, ground-level line source is presented.