Volatile organic compound fluxes in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley – spatial distribution, source attribution, and inventory comparison

Abstract

The San Joaquin Valley is an agricultural region in California that suffers from poor air quality. Since traffic emissions are decreasing, other sources of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are gaining importance in the formation of secondary air pollutants. Using airborne eddy covariance, we conducted direct, spatially resolved flux observations of a wide range of VOCs in the San Joaquin Valley during June 2021 at 23–36 ∘C. Through land-cover-informed footprint disaggregation, we were able to attribute emissions to sources and identify tracers for distinct source types. VOC mass fluxes were dominated by alcohols, mainly from dairy farms, while oak isoprene and citrus monoterpenes were important sources of reactivity. Comparisons with two commonly used inventories showed that isoprene emissions in the croplands were overestimated, while dairy and highway VOC emissions were generally underestimated in the inventories, and important citrus and biofuel VOC point sources were missing from the inventories. This study thus presents unprecedented insights into the VOC sources in an intensive agricultural region and provides much needed information for the improvement of inventories, air quality predictions, and regulations.