About Bulgarian Chemical Weather Forecasting System (BgCWFS)

The BgCWFS, developed at NIMH, is designed on the base of US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Models-3 air quality modelling system (CMAQ v4.6, WRF v3.6.1, MCIP v3.6 and SMOKE v2.4). It works operationally from the beginning of 2012 and provides 3-days forecast products in the form of hourly air quality maps at surface level for ozone, sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and particulate matter with diameter less than 10 µm (PM10).
(http://info.meteo.bg/cw2.1/ and http://info.meteo.bg/cw2.2/).

In the frame of SIDUAQ project, a modification of the BgCWFS was made to assimilate satellite data measured by GOME-2 instrument on board of MetOP satellites for domain Europe. Satellite retrieved data for Aerosol optical depth (AOD), NO2, SO2 in BgCWFS-sat are used for providing hourly values of particulate matter (PM) and other key pollutants with resolution 9x9 km over the territory of Bulgaria.

About Local Air Quality Management System (LAQMS)

The LAQMS, developed at NIMH, is designed on the base of the local dispersion model (Pol Tran). It is in use from 2004 and has been upgraded several times. The system provides diagnostic products in a form of hourly air quality maps at surface level for SO2, NO2, PM10 and Benzo(a)pyrene.

In the frame of SIDUAQ project, some modifications of the LAQMS were made:

The space resolution of the LAQMS is 1x1 km for the region and 250x250m for the city of Plovdiv.
When coupled to BgCWFS-sat, the LAQMS implicitly benefits from atmospheric composition satellite data.