Professor Mauricio Osses from Federico Santa María Technical University, Chile, will give a presentation about a model for estimation of emissions from the transportation sector in Chile, 2015-2050.

Chile has committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, which requires a dramatic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in the transportation sector, where fossil fuel dependency must drop from 98% to 39%. In parallel, Chile has been addressing urban air pollution for over 30 years, focusing on transportation. To support both climate and air quality goals, a proposed research project aims to develop a high-resolution, bottom-up emissions model covering all transportation modes (road, rail, maritime, air) nationwide from 2015 to 2050. This model will incorporate vehicle activity data, emissions factors, and the impact of emerging technologies such as EURO6/7 standards, electric and hydrogen vehicles, and indirect emissions from electricity generation. It will also include non-exhaust particulate emissions and deliver emissions data across spatial scales from 1x1 km to 100x100 m and temporal resolutions from hourly to yearly.

The model will quantify various pollutants including greenhouse gases, particulate matter, black carbon, and VOCs, and will be used to assess the effectiveness of national and international transport policy scenarios. It will also support three case studies: air quality modeling in Valparaiso using WRF-CHIMERE, analyzing perinatal health impacts from emissions, and enhancing traffic count accuracy in Santiago and Valparaiso using AI-driven video processing. The resulting inventory will be validated through comparison with official national reports, global emissions datasets, and satellite observations. The study seeks to determine whether higher-resolution emissions inventories improve urban air quality modeling and evaluate the feasibility of meeting Chile’s 2050 climate and pollution targets through proposed transport policies.

Fika will be served at 11.00, and the seminar starts at 11.15.