Ground Roughness
Ground roughness is a measure of the number and size of small obstacles (called roughness elements)
that a chemical cloud might encounter as it travels downwind over the terrain. As the cloud passes over
the roughness elements (such as shrubs), the flow of air is disturbed due to the friction between the
ground and air passing over it—causing an increase in atmospheric turbulence. Because the air nearest
the ground is slowed the most, eddies develop (just as they would in the water next to a riverbank).
Greater ground roughness results in greater atmospheric turbulence.
ALOHA needs to have an estimate of the ground roughness in the area in which the chemical cloud is
travelling, because the degree of atmospheric turbulence influences how quickly a cloud moving
downwind will mix with the air around it and be diluted below your Level of Concern (LOC). When all
else is equal, a threat zone for a gas dispersion scenario will be smaller when you choose a
larger ground roughness value, because the increased atmospheric turbulence causes the chemical
cloud to dilute more quickly.
In ALOHA, you can enter a value for ground roughness, or you can choose a representative type of
terrain and ALOHA will use that to estimate the ground roughness. ALOHA includes three choices for
terrain: Open Country, Urban or Forest, and Open Water.
Open Country: This type of terrain has low roughness and low turbulence, because the
chemical cloud is traveling over an area with only small or isolated roughness elements (e.g.,
open fields or parking lots). A chemical cloud generally travels farther across open country (than
over an urban area or a forest) and remains narrower; because it encounters fewer (and smaller)
roughness elements, less turbulence is created. ALOHA's threat zone will be longer when you
choose Open Country rather than Urban or Forest ground roughness.
Urban or Forest: This type of terrain has high roughness and high turbulence, because the
chemical cloud is traveling over an area with many friction-generating roughness elements, such
as trees or small buildings (e.g., residential housing developments, industrial areas, or forests).
Note that large obstacles (such as tall buildings) do not contribute to the ground roughness,
because the cloud is diverted around these obstacles. For example, in a downtown area on a
Sunday morning with no cars on the streets, the best choice for a small release may be Open
Country. In this example, the buildings are obstacles and the street is the roughness the pollutant
cloud will experience. Note that even if you indicate Urban or Forest terrain, ALOHA will not
account for the effect of large obstacles; see ALOHA's limitations for more details.
Open Water: This type of terrain has very low roughness and very low turbulence, because
the chemical cloud is traveling over a body of water that is large relative to the size of the cloud
(e.g., oceans or large lakes) and it is unlikely to encounter many roughness elements. Except
when the wind speed is very high, Open Water is the lowest ground roughness category in
ALOHA.
Entering Ground Roughness
On the Atmospheric Options dialog box (or the User Input for SAM Unit dialog box if you're using a SAM
station), enter the ground roughness value by either:
Selecting one of the terrain options at left: Open Country, Urban or Forest, or Open Water.
ALOHA will use the terrain type to estimate a value for ground roughness.
Selecting the Input Roughness (Zo) option, which will bring up a field where you can enter a
specific value for roughness length (Zo), a parameter used by meteorologists to describe ground
roughness. Note that how ALOHA interprets your value for Zo depends on whether it uses
Gaussian or heavy gas dispersion calculations.
For Gaussian dispersion, ALOHA has two sets of equations: one for Open Country ground
roughness and one for Urban or Forest. When you enter a Zo value, ALOHA uses the value
you entered to choose which set of equations to use (rather than using the Zo value itself).
If you enter a Zo value of 20 centimeters or less, ALOHA will use the Open Country equation
—otherwise ALOHA will use the Urban or Forest equation.
For heavy gas calculations, ALOHA will use the specific Zo value that you entered in most
cases. However, if you enter a Zo value above 10 centimeters, ALOHA will use a value of 10
centimeters in its equations regardless of the value that you entered.
See examples of Zo values for different surfaces...
If the area where you expect the chemical cloud to travel has a variety of ground roughness
types, choose the dominant category in the area. For example, if 70% of the area is urban or
forest and 30% is open country, click Urban or Forest. If you can't easily determine the dominant
category, run ALOHA once with each category selected to get an idea of the possible range in threat
zone size.
Allowable Input
Your value for Zo must be between 0.001 centimeters (0.0004 inches) and 200 centimeters (78 inches).
