Validation of the Emission Inventory of the Year 2021 from the City of Cuenca, Ecuador, Through Weather and Air Quality Modeling Using WRF-Chem

The last atmospheric emission inventory for Cuenca, a city located in the Andean region of southern Ecuador, was developed for the year 2021 (EI 2021), encompassing both primary pollutants (NOx, CO, VOC, SO2, PM10, and PM2.5) and greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, and N2O). We formally assessed the quality of the emission inventory by modeling air quality levels during October 2021 using the Weather Research and Forecasting with Chemistry (WRF-Chem 3.2) model at a high spatial resolution (1 km). We activated the direct effects for modeling the feedback between aerosols and atmospheric variables. The metrics indicated that both meteorological and air quality variables were modeled acceptably, suggesting the quality of the emission inventory and the ability of WRF-Chem 3.2 to perform atmospheric modeling in this complex region, using the “one atmosphere” approach. The results and spatial distribution of the EI 2021 were compared to the emission data coming from the last version of the Edgar Emissions Dataset (spatial resolution of 11.1 km) one of the most used global emission data, which suggested that for the Equatorial Andean region, the Edgar Dataset results require improvement, at least for some primary pollutants (CO, VOC, SO2) in terms of magnitude, and of the spatial configuration of all the pollutants, before they can be used for atmospheric modeling. We also identified future research activities to improve the emission inventories and atmospheric modeling performance in the Equatorial Andean region.