Methodology choice could affect air quality interpretation? A case study for an international airport, Marco Polo, Venice

Venice Marco Polo Airport (VCE) is one of the most important airport of Italy, but is also placed in a delicate context; due to the proximity of the airport to the Venice historical city and the fragile ecosystem of the Lagoon that surround the city. For all these reasons the priority was to assess the possible impact of Marco Polo Airport in Venice area. For this reason a collaboration between Save Spa, the company that manage Marco Polo airport, and the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, of Ca' Foscari University was stated in order to: (I) understand the impact on air quality of an airport structure in a vulnerable context (II) analyze the airport emission trend (III) analyze how the number of flights and aircraft type can influence emission. During this collaboration two methodologies for emission estimation (EMEP-CORINAIR and Emissions and Dispersion Modeling System, EDMS) were tested in order to understand what was the best tool to estimate aircraft exhausts emissions. Results, reported in this paper show a deep difference between the two methods, with a general decrease in emission estimation using EDMS model, except in a NOx and HC cases. Subsequently the difference in emission in two typical operating days of 2009 was investigated. Results show that schedule and number of flights affect deeply emission estimation. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.