Exploring trade-offs between air pollutants through an Integrated Assessment Model

When designing air pollution reduction policies, regional decision makers face a limited budget to choose the most efficient measures which will have impacts on several pollutants in different ways. RIAT+ is a regional integrated assessment tool that supports the policy maker in this selection of the optimal emission reduction technologies, to improve air quality at minimum costs. In this paper, this tool is formalized and applied to the specific case of a French region (Alsace), to illustrate how focusing on one single pollutant may exacerbate problems related to other pollutants, on top of conflicts related to budget allocation. In our case, results are shown for possible trade-offs between NO2 and O3 control policies. The paper suggests an approach to prioritize policy maker objectives when planning air pollution policies at regional scale. •RIAT+ is a methodology and tool for Integrated Assessment Modeling at local scale.•It selects optimal air quality policies, considering a multi-pollutant framework.•It shows possible trade-offs among policies devoted to different pollutants.•It is applied over Alsace Region, for joint NO2 and O3 control.