Particulate matter causes health risks ranging from respiratory diseases to cardiovascular diseases and even early mortality. The origin of fine dust is often unclear. That is why TNO has developed the web application TOPAS, now in beta version, which provides a reliable and up-to-date insight into the origin of particulate matter (PM10 and PM2.5) and the specific source. The data that is used is less than a day old.
Air quality of Europe
The TOPAS web application reflects the air quality of more than 200 cities in Europe and can be visited free of charge by interested parties and policy makers. The data shown less than 24 hours old and goes back up to 6 weeks. Policy makers can request data from TNO that goes back longer.
With the help of TOPAS, one can see for each city which sources are responsible for the particulate matter in the air. Think of industry, energy generators, traffic, agriculture or homes.
In TOPAS, you can choose a display between particulate matter type (PM10 or PM2.5) and data can be chosen for a large city or a specific measuring station. Additionally, one can choose between particulate matter origin by sector or data split in local vs.s. non-local sources.
Are you curious where the particulate matter in your area comes from? Then visit the TOPAS website.
Data origin
The data used in TOPAS comes from:
- CTM LOTUS EURO
LOTUS EURO is a chemical transport model developed by TNO. This model predicts air quality, models emissions and maps pollution sources. The model processes data for TOPAS from weather models of the European Copernicus atmospheric monitoring system (CAMS) and the weather reports from ECMWF.
- CAMS
The European Copernicus atmospheric monitoring system (CAMS) provides information to TOPAS on intercontinental transport and emissions from forest fires.
- TNO Emission information
A specialized team within TNO focuses on the quantification and distribution of emissions, for calculating air quality and climate.
- Measurement data
PM10 and PM2.5 measurement data from local measuring stations
