Modification and validation of a method for estimating the location of a point stationary source of passive non-reactive pollutant in an urban environment

In Kovalets et al. (2011), a method was developed to estimate the location and rate of an unknown point stationary source of passive atmospheric pollutant in a complex urban geometry. The algorithm was implemented in the ADREA-HF Computational Fluid Dynamics code and was applied in a complex urban geometry (the MUST wind tunnel experiment). This approach has also been evaluated for the Michelstadt experiment (Tsiouri et al., 2014). In the present paper, a major change in the data assimilation code includes the implementation of a two-step approach: At first only the source coordinates are analysed using a correlation function of measured and calculated concentrations. In the second step the source rate is identified by minimizing a quadratic cost function. The validation of the new algorithm is performed for the source location by simulating a wind tunnel experiment on atmospheric dispersion among buildings of a real urban environment. Good results of source location estimation are obtained. Special attention is given on the grid influence regarding the obtained results.