Invited Speaker: Kundan Las Shrestha
Title: Impact of local urban processes and long-range transport of air pollutants on the air quality of Kathmandu Valley
Kundan Lal Shrestha has fifteen years of experience in environmental modeling with emphasis on air quality modeling, water resource modeling and integrated air-water coupled modeling. His research includes an assessment of atmospheric transport phenomena, impacts of climate change on the environment, hydroclimatology, urban environmental pollution, regional climate modeling, and so on. He was awarded M.E. and PhD in Engineering in Sustainable Energy and Environmental Engineering from Osaka University, Japan. He was also awarded the prestigious JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) Postdoctoral Fellowship for two years at Osaka University. His expertise in environmental modeling has successfully been applied in Urban Heat Island effect and its mitigation, effect of wildfire on air quality, visibility and fog simulations, emissions from brick kilns and their transport, regional climate change projections in the Himalayan region using a simulation of present and future scenarios, and many monitoring researches in air quality. working group.
ABSTRACT
Kathmandu Valley is urbanizing haphazardly and its air quality is degrading due to several problems linked with urbanization, such as Urban Heat Island effect and land-use changes, and also due to transboundary transport of air pollutants. The comprehensive modeling assessment confirms the impact of urban changes on the air quality of Kathmandu Valley. WRF-Chem modeling with urban canopy effects was primarily used for the research and the sparse air quality measurements in the valley were supplemented with the use of portable air quality sensors. The air pollutants such as PM2.5, PM10 and ozone, and aerosol optical depth were simulated and then validated. The contribution of the transboundary transport of air pollutants to the air quality of Kathmandu Valley was also estimated with the particular focus on wildfire emissions. Thus, the impact of local urban processes and long-range transport on ozone and particulate matter in Kathmandu Valley will be presented in the conference.