Optimal Control Strategies for Air Quality Standards and Regulatory Policy

The setting of air quality standards for classes of air pollution in a region is one approach to the protection of public health and welfare by defining limits on levels of pollution in the air. We present methods to determine regional emission regulations that are (1) feasible in the sense that they lead to compliance with air quality standards and (2) optimal in the sense that the total economic impact due to implementation is minimized. Under goal (1) we set forth a procedure more sophisticated than heuristic procedures such as those guaranteeing compliance on a fixed rectangular set of grid receptor points in a region. We discuss various modifications responding to issues of regulatory policy, thereby obtaining a more accurate picture of the total impact of implementation of control strategies. We also indicate how damage functions may be incorporated, where now the standard (or the set of multiple standards) is a variable to be determined, together with emission rate reductions, so as to minimize the joint sum of individual control costs for the region and the total of damage costs, while keeping pollutant emissions below standards (to be determined) at all point coordinates in the region. In this way control strategies and emission standards may be derived jointly in a framework that automatically balances decrements of damage due to improved air quality with increased control costs associated with tighter standards. Furthermore the model determines the location of the maximum concentration intensities, which may not necessarily be on grid points, and hence indicates where to place sampling stations in order to guarantee compliance at all coordinates in the region over the prescribed period of time.