Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions Across Urban Landscapes

Arizona State University researchers have developed a new software system capable of estimating greenhouse gas emissions across entire urban landscapes, all the way down to roads and individual buildings. Until now, scientists quantified carbon dioxide emissions at a much broader level. Dubbed "Hestia" after the Greek goddess of the hearth and home, the software combines extensive public database data-mining with traffic simulation and building-by-building energy-consumption modeling. Its high-resolution maps clearly identify carbon dioxide emission sources in a way that policymakers can utilize and the public can understand.

Transcript

00:00:00 foreign climate change is happening and will likely accelerate it has been driven primarily by rising carbon dioxide emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels cities currently contain one half of the world's population contributing over two-thirds of the energy-related greenhouse gas emissions

00:00:42 this is projected to rise in the coming decades as urbanization trends intensify strategies to address climate change mitigation in cities are limited by our inability to quantitatively characterize where when and how greenhouse gases are emitted our response to this challenge is the hestia project a data model system that quantifies all

00:01:08 carbon dioxide emitting processes in an urban domain down to the individual building and street level we have completed this effort in the city of indianapolis and are currently working on similar efforts in los angeles and phoenix the methods used to quantify the on-site fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions combine a series of data sets and

00:01:35 simulation tools such as a building energy simulation model traffic data power production reporting and local air pollution reporting total annual carbon dioxide emissions have been categorized into commonly used economic sectors commercial emissions are laid out in a spoken hub pattern residential emissions are laid out in

00:02:05 surrounding subdivisions industrial emissions are large and placed along major transport arteries there's one large international airport a regional airport and a heliport downtown vehicle emissions are restricted to minor arterials and larger electricity production is dominated by the large coal burning power plant near

00:02:32 the city centre the coal burning power plant and the international airport are the two dominant emitting sources within the indianapolis landscape hourly emissions show a more dynamic nature note that the commercial buildings have greater emissions during the daytime hours

00:03:02 residential buildings by contrast have greater emissions during the nighttime hours vehicle emissions exhibit rush hours in the morning and in the evening here are all the sectors combined for night and day note the morning transition from the enhanced residential carbon dioxide emissions to the vehicle emissions and

00:03:34 then to the commercial and industrial emissions as the business day evolves finally we present a sped up day night cycle for the winter on the left and the summer on the right note how the winter building emissions are far greater than the summer equivalent due to greater building heating demand

00:03:58 the hestia system can be applied to any u.s city the system can be used for verification and holds tremendous potential as a guide for managers and local organizations to create effective economically efficient emissions reduction options you