|
|
|
Project Description
Fort Benning and other similar military and federally managed lands in the
southeastern US use prescribed burning to recreate the natural fire regimes
needed to maintain the health of its native long leaf pine forest, home of
the endangered Red Cockaded Woodpecker. Biomass burning however, can
contribute to local and regional air pollutant loads, and exasperate an area's
ability to meet state and federal air quality standards. In developing an
effective and efficient plan that will provide the ecological benefits
afforded by prescribed burning without compromising an area's ability to
meet clean air goals, important questions to ask are:
- To what extent does prescribed burning affect local and regional air quality?
- What types of pollutants are emitted and in what quantities?
- In what way are these pollutants physically and chemically transformed in the atmosphere? and
- How do different environmental conditions and burning practices affect the pollutant loads and
transformation pathways?
To answer these questions, Georgia Tech is collaborating with Fort Benning and
Columbus State University to collect and analyze fine particle samples at the nearby Oxbow
Meadows Environmental Learning Center during burning and nonburning
days at Fort Benning. Ultimately, this study will provide information to identify and
quantify the fraction of the ambient PM2.5 pollutant load that is caused by local
biomass burning. Additionally, VOC (volatile organic compounds) samples upwind, in
situ, and downwind of prescribed burning at Forts Benning and Gordon,
and Shaw Air Force Base will be collected and analyzed. Samples will be collected
at different times during the burning events to capture the transformation of the
pollutants and the evolution of the burn from open flame, to smolder, to extinction.
These samples are important for learning to recognize markers of biomass burning in the
ambient air and discerning their contribution to both ozone and PM pollution events.
|