**4. Conclusions**

Aiming to design public policies to control agricultural burning, we assessed the environmental impact generated by this activity. We used AERMOD to determine the concentration of the pollutants generated by this activity on the areas nearby the burning area (cultivated crop). We considered a wide range of meteorological conditions, burning rates, geometries, and sizes of burning areas.

The area influenced by a given agricultural burning is the largest area where the concentration of any of the pollutant under consideration exceeds its maximum threshold values established in the local atmospheric air quality standards (NAAQS). Results show that this area is a band around the cultivated area whose size increase with the emission rate of the riskiest pollutant (Figure 5a), but it does not depend on size of the burning area. The risk of a pollutant was quantified as the ratio of their emission rate to its threshold value established in the NAAQS.

The emission rate is proportional to the burning rate. As farmers control burning rate by controlling the length and number of starting flame fronts, we proposed the elaboration of a public policy to limit the burning rate in the way that no households are located within the resulting influence area. This proposal should be taken as a transitional stage towards a policy of no agricultural burnings in consideration of their adverse e ffects on the environment.

**Author Contributions:** D.F.P. Software, formal analysis, investigation, and original draft preparation. J.I.H. Conceptualization, formal analysis, writing—review and editing, and supervision.

**Funding:** This research was financed by the Mexican Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) and by the Colombian Ministry of the Environment.

**Acknowledgments:** This study was partially financed by the Colombian Ministry of the Environment, the Mexican Council for Science and Technology (Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología-CONACYT), and CAIA Engineering.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.


