RAINS 1

ECON 4910 Spring 2007 Environmental Economics Lecture 7, The RAINS modelMemorandum No 37/99

Lecturer: Finn R. Førsund

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Background

Transboundary pollution First UN 1972 conference on the human

environment:

States have ...the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other states or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.

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Background, cont.

OECD: The Polluter Pays Principle, PPP. OECD /UNECE: Convention on Long-Range

Transboundary Air Pollution, LRTRAP EMEP : Co-operative programme for the

Monitoring and Evaluation of the Long-Range Transmission of Air Pollutants in Europe.

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Results of LRTRAP The first sulphur protocol; the Helsinki Protocol,

1985, uniform reductions of 30% The RAINS model 1983 - : Regional Acidification INformation and Simulation

The second sulphur protocol; the Oslo Protocol, 1994: non-uniform reductions up to 80%

The 1999 Gothenburg Protocol to abate acidification, eutrophication and ground-level ozone, up to 88% reductions in 2010 compared with 1990

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The RAINS model

Cost-efficient reductions of emissions of substances generating acidification, eutrophication and ground-level ozone for a future year

The RAINS model consists of Transport coefficients from source to

environmental receptor Target loads for each receptor Purification cost functions for a set of pollutants

emitted by a source (country, region)

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Environmental receptors:EMEP grids of Europe Source: Country

Assumption: Spatial distribution of emissions constant

Receptor: A map grid of 50x50 km Consequence: many

different ecosystems within each receptor

Transfer coefficient average value for a year

over a number of years

.i

j

50 km

50 km

aij

Source

Receptor.Trajectory

Transport coefficient

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Critical loads

Repeated deposition that will not create significant damage of the ecosystem in the long run

Interpretation of significant damage: Ecosystem functions ok, reproduction ok

Priority problems within a grid Cannot aggregate ecosystems Critical classification survival-no survival

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Deriving environmental targets based on critical loads Too expensive to apply critical loads as

environmental objectives Deposition gap closure for a receptor

Closing the gap between a benchmark deposition do and a critical load CL5% corresponding to killing 5% of the ecosystem area

Target deposition d**

5%

*5%

( )

(1 )

o o

o

d d x d CL

d xCL x d

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CL1do

Deposition gap closure illustrated

CL cumulativedistribution

Deposition/hectar

100%8

7

6

5

4

3

215%

Ecosystem area in %

CL5%d*

Gap closure

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Deriving targets based on area gap closure Reducing unprotected area Aij with a certain

percentage Unprotected area: share of ecosystem area with

depositions above critical loads

Protected area: share of ecosystem area with depositions below critical loads

Finding max dj* satisfying

{ : }Uj ijS i CL d

{ : }Pj ijS i CL d

*( ) ( )(1 )

U U oj j j j

ij iji S d i S d

A x A

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8

Area gap closure illustrated

CL cumulativedistribution

Deposition/hectar

100%

7

6

5

4

3

21

Ecosystem area in %

d* do

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Accumulated Average Exceedance (AAE) gap closure AAE focuses on the exceedance in each

ecosystem of a grid-cell

The target for AAE as a x % gap closure

[ ( ),0] ( ),j j

ij o oj ij j j ij

i S i S

AMax d CL AAE d A A

A

* (1 ) ( ), 1,..,oj j jAAE x AAE d j R

( ) 0, ' 0 ,

( ) 0, ' 0 0 , , 1,..,

j j j j ij

j j j j ij j

AAE d AAE for d Min CL

AAE d AAE for d Min CL i S j R

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8

AAE principle illustrated

CL cumulativedistribution

Deposition/hectar

100%

7

6

5

4

3

21

Ecosystem area in %

AAE* do

Exceedance