The bolzano tracer experiment (btex): An experiment on tracer gas dispersion from an incinerator stack and on its real-time modelling

On February 14th 2017, the Bolzano Tracer Experiment (BTEX) was conducted in Bolzano, a town in the Eastern Italian Alps. The experiment consisted in two 1-h-long releases of a tracer from the stack of the local incinerator plant and in the measurements of tracer ground concentrations in the surroundings. Before and during the releases, a modelling chain was run in order to have a real-time forecast of both meteorological conditions and tracer concentrations at the ground. The experiment was conducted in the framework of a wider project, supported by the incinerator company and the local environmental protection agency, with the final aim of locating a permanent air-quality stations network for monitoring purposes. This contribution aims at presenting the experimental setup, the data collected and the results from the numerical modelling chain.