Air Quality
Local Air Quality
Management
Air Quality Management Services
Main concern for airport stakeholders are two-fold:
* Meeting EU Air Quality Standards
* Air Quality Compliance & Community Protection
European airports are operating under increasingly stringent environmental requirements, such as the tightened nitrogen dioxide restrictions set for 2030 and the European Union's commitment to eliminate pollution by 2050. Traditional pollution tracking methods are becoming inadequate in response to these demands. Airports now require detailed information about pollution origins..
With growing public concerns over pollutant emissions and their impact on health, the aviation sector, especially airports, must adopt proactive and effective strategies to mitigate these issues.
First by taking control of airport emissions:
1)Understand Your Airport's Air Quality Impact: Gain clear visibility into where pollution is coming from at your facility.
2)Take Control of Environmental Compliance: Our analysis identifies your specific emission sources, helping you implement targeted solutions that actually work for your airport's unique situation.
3)From Data to Real Results: Get the emissions insights you need, paired with practical strategies your team can execute—turning environmental challenges into competitive advantages and community trust.
Airports are hubs of activity, with emissions from aircraft, ground vehicles, and nearby infrastructure contributing to Local Air Quality (LAQ) concerns: in particular, emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon monoxide (CO) and particulate matter (PM) are the most important contributors on LAQ concerns. However, the airport is not the only source of emissions. Usually, airports are surrounded by road networks and supplied by power stations and other industrial facilities. The airport is therefore not the only, and often not even the major source, responsible for all the air pollution measured in the area. The pragmatic solution to understanding the contribution of an airport to the measured air quality at any point around it is through modelling.
Effective air quality management begins with detailed emissions inventories, allowing airports to pinpoint the exact sources of pollution. Dispersion modeling offers insights into how pollutants move, helping airports assess both existing conditions and future impacts from planned infrastructure, such as runway expansions or new terminals. With this data, airports can develop more targeted strategies to reduce their environmental footprint and meet regulatory requirements. Combining the Emissions inventory with dispersion models can be used to assess the current or the forecast LAQ for planned projects. Knowing what are the critical pollutants and where the concentration is close to or higher than regulated limits, is essential to better understand the problem at its source. New infrastructure projects such as new runways or Terminals can be assessed for their impact as the geographical distribution of the sources and the amounts will change, as will non-airport sources, in particular road traffic, which may have some dependency relationship with any growth of the airport.
Env-isa, since 2004, has been involved in airport air quality management. Env-isa offers internationally accredited solutions and models (ICAO/CAEP) tailored to airports (LASPORT, Open-ALAQS etc..). In addition to involvement in European research projects like CleanSky (RAPTOR for ultrafine particles), OLGA (hOListic Green Airport ) Env-isa has carried out numerous consulting and auditing missions, creating innovative tools for the airport sector.
Some of our combined air quality monitoring (low cost) and modelling case studies include:
King Khalid International Airport, Saudi Arabia (2019–Present) – Real-Time Monitoring and Air Quality & Emissions Analysis: Env-isa is involved in a project to install a series of environmental monitoring stations around King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. Several low-cost stations have been set up to monitor air quality, measuring pollutants such as PM1, PM2.5, PM10, NO, NO2, H2S, SO2, CO, CO2, and O3. Additionally, in house environmental dashboard was created, helping to correlate pollutant events with environmental conditions, aircraft movements, and many more customized parameters.
Groupe ADP (2019) – Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport Terminal 4 Project
Air Quality Assessment based on available measurements (Initial State). Env-isa conducted atmospheric pollutant dispersion modeling for various scenarios, considering the most relevant airport emission sources. Additionally, sustainable solutions like single-engine taxiing, green taxiing, and biofuels were incorporated into this study.
ADP Airports (Since 2023)
Env-isa has also been conducting comprehensive air quality studies for all three ADP airports in Île-de-France, including Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Orly, and Le Bourget.
OLGA (hOListic Green Airport ) Env-isa leads the WP6.1 Development of a Software as a System (SaaS) for Emissions and Air Quality Pollutants and Air Quality Modelling and Monitoring. One of the objectives of this task is to develop a set of reference scenarios to monitor how OLGA potential innovations impact emissions and air quality and to test the platform to be integrated with fellow airports.
To explore ENV-ISA’s paper on “Climate Change and Airport Air Quality: Challenges, Diagnostics, Actions,” click here.