MAQS showcases

Quick links:Ireland Hong Kong (PRAISE-HK) London (CureAir) Malaysia and Vietnam (DHAQ-SEA) Guangdong, China Punjab, Pakistan

MAQS is appropriate for use in base year historical modelling, scenario assessment and forecasting applications. Selected case studies are summarised below, with further information available here.

Ireland

A good example of MAQS application in the context of Directive (EU) 2024/2881 is the study involving the generation of street-scale (20 m resolution) pollution maps for Ireland, which is an EU Member State. CERC was commissioned by the Irish EPA to provide air quality modelling of the entire country for the years 2018 and 2019. Although the study was undertaken prior to the introduction of Directive (EU) 2024/2881 and was designed to support compliance with the previous AAQDs, it nevertheless provides an excellent demonstration of the type of integrated modelling approach that can be used to meet the assessment requirements of the new Directive. The MAQS coupled system was used to integrate regional-scale hourly pollutant concentration predictions from EMEP chemical transport model, using meteorological data generated by the WRF mesoscale meteorological model, with local-scale dispersion modelling using ADMS-Urban. The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH) performed the WRF and EMEP simulations over Ireland at a horizontal resolution of 1 km, providing the meteorological and background air quality fields required by the coupled modelling framework.

Model outputs were extensively evaluated against measurement data for both 2018 and 2019, including use of FAIRMODE model assessment tools, which have been developed to support model evaluation in the context of the AAQD. High resolution pollution maps corresponding to both short- and long-term AAQD metrics were generated for the whole country.

Hong Kong (PRAISE-HK)

This project involved the development and deployment of a real-time, regional-to-local scale air quality forecasting system for Hong Kong. The PRAISE-HK system uses MAQS, with ADMS-Urban coupled to WRF-CMAQ, to provide information on personal exposure at street level via the PRAISE-HK app. The project is led by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and further details are here.

London (CureAir)

This scientific research project was funded by the UK's Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and aimed to investigate regional and local effects on urban air quality for current and future climates. MAQS (then known as the ‘Regional Model Link’, RML) was used to couple a WRF-EMEP model configuration to the ADMS-Urban model, for London. Base year results were published in Hood et al., 2018, while future climate scenario modelling results are reported in Doherty et al., 2026. Further project details are here.

Malaysia and Vietnam (DHAQ-SEA)

This project was a feasibility study to develop a high-resolution air quality forecasting system for regions within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The system applied MAQS for 200 km by 200 km domains in Malaysia and Vietnam, with ADMS-Urban coupled to CAMS forecast archive datasets. A comprehensive report describes how the forecasting system could be developed. More details on the project can be found here.

Guangdong, China

This project involved air quality modelling using MAQS. MAQS coupled the WRF/CMAQ regional models with ADMS-Urban for Guangdong. Results were published in Zhang et al., 2022, while more details on the project can be found here.

Punjab, Pakistan

This project, led by a group of academics from MIT, LSE and Sciences Po, studied the impacts of transport improvements on air quality in the Punjab region of Pakistan. The project uses MAQS, with ADMS-Urban coupled with ECMWF/CAMS, to determine baseline air quality modelling. More details on the project can be found here.