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Project Code [2017-HW-DS-5]
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Project title
SCAIL Agriculture Screening Tool Maintenance and Development
Primary Funding Agency
Environmental Protection Agency
Co-Funding Organisation(s)
n/a
Lead Organisation
Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)
Lead Applicant
Peter Singleton
Project Abstract
Simple Calculation of Atmospheric Impact Limits from Agricultural Sources (SCAIL Agriculture) is a screening tool for assessing the impact of emissions from pig and poultry farms on human health and on designated habitat sites. The model provides an estimate of the amount of acidity and nitrogen deposited as a consequence of ammonia emissions from a farm as well as predictions of air concentrations of ammonia, odour and PM10. These values can then be used to assess whether impact limits for human health or habitats are likely to be exceeded and help users in deciding whether more detailed modelling or site specific investigation is required. The tool can be used by Operators or by Regulators to assess the deposition from the proposed installation. Since the end of the SNIFFER ER26 project, the SCAIL Agriculture screening tool has had no formal method of governance. A technical group, with members from each UK agency and the Republic of Ireland, met to identify several areas of development for which funding would be required including: 1. Account for existing sources� contributions in background PM10 to avoid double-counting 2. Develop a user-friendly interface that enables SCAIL to conduct separate runs for multiple dispersed sources then sum the results; conduct sensitivity or similar analysis to establish how conservative the results would be and consider alternative options for handling multiple sources. 3. Add cattle as livestock type, (not used for permitting but useful for advice to Planning and diffuse pollution issues). 4. Investigate why SCAIL odour results are so conservative 5. Investigate the possibility to enter user-defined exceedance criteria (the x, in x% of critical load) 6. Add designated habitat feature name in results file. 7. Consider whether to include Digestate emission factors 8. Auto-update of Ireland datasets for N dep, acid dep, concentration etc. via APIS 9. Meta-analysis of collated intercomparison studies, possibly as part of an MSc research project
Grant Approved
�17,341.91
Research Hub
Healthy Environment
Research Theme
Health and well being
Initial Projected Completion Date
25/05/2017