Abstract

Modeling pollen emission processes is crucial for studying the spatiotemporal distributions of airborne allergenic pollen. A semi-mechanistic emission model was developed based on mass balance of pollen grain fluxes in the surroundings of allergenic plants. The emission model considers direct emission and resuspension and accounts for influences of temperature, wind velocity, and relative humidity. Modules of this emission model have been developed and parameterized with multiple years of pollen count observations to provide pollen season onset and duration, hourly flowering likelihood, and vegetation coverage for oak and ragweed, as two examples. The simulated spatiotemporal pattern of pollen emissions generally follows the corresponding pattern of area coverage of allergenic plants and diurnal pattern of hourly flowering likelihood. It is found that oak pollen emissions start from the Southern part of …

Date

2019

Authors

Ting Cai, Yong Zhang, Xiang Ren, Leonard Bielory, Zhongyuan Mi, Christopher G Nolte, Yang Gao, L Ruby Leung, Panos G Georgopoulos

Journal

Science of the Total Environment

Volume

653

Pages

947-957

Publisher

Elsevier