Framework for topographic mesh generation and its application to the pollution simulations in Kraków area

Abstract

Air pollution is receiving a lot of interest nowadays. It is visible especially in the Kraków area, as this is one of the most polluted cities in Europe. People living there are more and more aware of the problem, what causes raising of various movements and NGOs that are trying to improve air quality. Unfortunately, this is not as simple as people usually think: air pollution grows because of multiple factors including traffic, climate, heating of buildings in winter, city’s architecture, etc. In this paper, we simulate and predict pollution with high resolution, as air quality can vary significantly over a distance of even a few hundreds of meters. Air quality simulation is a multidisplinary endeavor, comprising physical models (meteorological and chemistry) as well as numerical methods (geometry discretization, time and space discretization, etc.). It has been found that there is no proper method for automatic terrain mesh generation, so an algorithm for doing it is presented in this document as its significant part.