Final Report – BRAVO

This is the official final report prepared by the BRAVO Technical Subcommittee for the BRAVO Steering Committee.  EPA and NPS financed this study with contributions from EPRI, and staff of EPA, NPS, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) comprised the Steering Committee. The BRAVO Study’s chief purpose was to quantify the contribution to haze at Big Bend National Park, Texas from source regions and source types in the U.S. and Mexico. This was a foundational, science-based study and not one that evaluated control strategy options. Detailed discussion of all analyses and procedures are available in the appendices and journal articles.

PRIMARY AUTHORS

Marc L. Pitchford	National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Las Vegas, NV
Ivar Tombach	Camarillo, CA
Michael Barna	Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, CO
Kristi A. Gebhart	National Park Service, Air Resources Division, Ft. Collins, CO
Mark C. Green	Desert Research Institute, Las Vegas, NV
Eladio Knipping	EPRI, Palo Alto, CA
Naresh Kumar	EPRI, Palo Alto, CA
William C. Malm	National Park Service, Air Resources Division, Ft. Collins, CO
Betty Pun	Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc., San Ramon, CA
Bret A. Schichtel	National Park Service, Air Resources Division, Ft. Collins, CO
Christian Seigneur	Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc., San Ramon, CA

Click on the title below to view PDF files of these documents:
The Final BRAVO Report (10.5 mb)

The BRAVO Report by Chapter

Cover and Table of Contents

Executive Summary

Ch 1. Technical Overview (0.8 mb)

Ch 2. Introduction (0.5 mb)

Ch 3. Study Design and Implementation (0.4 mb)

Ch 4. Emission Information (0.4 mb)

Ch 5. The Atmospheric Environment Observed at Big Bend National Park During the BRAVO Study (1.1 mb)

Ch 6. Analysis of BRAVO Measurements (0.3 mb)

Ch 7. Study Period Representativeness (0.7 mb)

Ch 8. Attribution Analysis and Modeling Methods (2.2 mb)

Ch 9. Evaluation of Source Attribution Methods (1.8 mb)

Ch 10. Source Attributions by Ambient Data Analysis (0.6 mb)

Ch 11. Source Attributions by Air Quality Modeling (0.4 mb)

Ch 12. Attribution Reconciliation, Conceptual Model, and Lessons Learned (0.7 mb)

Ch 13._References

Appendices

Appendix 1 – Airborne Pollution Monitoring Services (6 mb)

Appendix 2 – Very fine Silicon plus Sulfur as a Tracer of Coal Fired Power Plants during BRAVO (.08 mb)

Appendix 3 – Was BRAVO Meteorology “Typical”? (0.2 mb)

Appendix 4 – Evaluation of the Reconstruction Equation at Big Bend during BRAVO & Using Factor Analysis to Relate Aerosol Concentrations to Light Extinction (0.3 mb)

Appendix 5 – BRAVO Study Emissions Inventory (1.1 mb)

Appendix 6 – Application of Factor Analysis to the BRAVO Dataset (1.5 mb)

Appendix 7 – Modeling Analysis of the Bravo Study (3.3 mb)

Appendix 8 – NPS/CIRA Final BRAVO Report (28.7 mb)

Appendix 8a – 5-day CAPITA Monte Carlo Back Trajectories (12.4 mb)

Appendix 8b – 5-day HYSPLIT Back Trajectories (6 mb)

Appendix 8c – 5-day ATAD Back Trajectories (3.6 mb)

Appendix 8d – Daily maps of fine particulate sulfur concentrations (2 mb)

Appendix 8e – Animations of REMSAD model results (11 mb)

Appendix 9 – MM5 Modeling in support of the BRAVO Study (1.5 mb)

Appendix 10 – Emissions Processing for the BRAVO Study (0.2 mb)

Appendix 11 – The Perfluorocarbon Tracer Releases During the BRAVO Study (0.5 mb)