The article “Tracing the origin of odour nuisance from citizens’ notifications with the SMART modelling system” has been published in Atmospheric Environment, describing ARIANET’s involvement in the NOSE system.
Odour nuisances have a significant impact on the quality of life of affected populations, but tracing the source of foul emissions is a challenge. Numerical models can be effectively used to support both the identification of potential source areas and the execution of timely field measurements. In this context, ARIANET has contributed to the development of a new methodology aimed at tracing the origin of odours starting from citizens’ reports.
A numerical procedure has been developed that processes the reports received through the NOSE Web-App to produce the correct input for the dispersion module of the SMART weather-dispersion modelling system. A post-processing numerical code then processes the simulation output based on a combination of stochastic Lagrangian particle puffs, released backward in time relative to the locations and times of the citizens’ notifications.
This new approach is presented and applied to three real case studies in the Syracuse province area (Sicily, Italy), with the resulting findings discussed. The new methodology has proven reliable and effective in identifying the most probable areas that may cause the nuisance.
You can read the full article here.