Background of Air Quality Monitoring in India
The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and State
Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) are the government agencies responsible for
managing air quality at national and state levels. The ground based monitoring
networks in India include the National Ambient Monitoring Programme (NAMP)
network operated under the guidelines of Central Pollution Control Board, state
level air monitoring networks operated by respective State Pollution Control
Boards, and other networks operated by the National Environmental Engineering
Research Institute (NEERI), universities and research groups. Studies on the
health impact of air pollution in India have been limited and the
high pollution levels in a large number of cities with high population
densities are a cause for concern. An example issue in need of improved
decision support tools and technologies is the impact on crops due to ozone and
climate change, including early warning systems and public service bulletins to
targeted communities.
The NAMP network consists of 342 operating stations within
127 cities in 26 states and 4 Union
Territories of the
country. All these stations monitor sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen
dioxide (NO2), Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter (RSPM) and
Suspended Particulate Matter (SPM) ), Ammonia and Hydrogen Sulphide on every
third day. More than 100 continuous
monitoring stations have been also commissioned by CPCB, SPCB’s and the
Industry in cities of concern such as Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, etc. Periodically, heavy metals
in PM and PAHs are also analyzed from many of these stations.
Major Issues with Air Quality Monitoring System
The present system of measurement does serve a purpose of
providing city specific plan however, it has limited role in terms of
understanding of little extended region around these cities. The point measurements from the monitoring
stations are thus limited in their temporal frequency and geographic coverage,
and lack the spatial continuity to provide a synoptic view of air quality in
the region. The current monitoring network also lacks monitoring in rural areas
that are impacted by pollution transport downwind of urban and industrialized
areas. The other related problem is with regard to data of background against
which the cities air quality can be compared. The background data points are
very limited compared to urban centric or industrial clusters data from
monitoring stations. With the addition of continuous monitoring stations is some
cities, issue pertaining to inter-comparison of data within the cities as also
across the country, becomes a major concern.
Responses needed
Additional modes of monitoring are needed to better assess
air quality and recent developments in the earth observation (EO) systems
provide an excellent opportunity to integrate satellite data with surface
measurements to support the decision-making processes for effective air quality
management. Presently, these data are
not utilized to their full potential for air quality management in India,
and are, for the most part, limited to the research community. The opportunity
to find, access and understand air quality data from different sources for
examining, processing, overlaying and displaying would offer an added dimension
to the air quality management processes in the country.
The GEOSS vision provides a structure for environmental data
to be easily available through an interoperability framework that allows them
to be used via various subsets and combinations in support specific research
and decision applications (Figure 1).
Figure 1: GEOSS connecting observation and modeling
systems with decision processes
The use of data and their application for air quality
achieved in GEOSS through web and data standards would allow disparate data to
be accessible to a variety of decision support tools. The GEOSS Common
Infrastructure (GCI) on one hand would provide a channel for data providers to
register and catalog standards-based web service interfaces to satellite, surface
and modeled data, and on the other hand, for data consumers to find and access
those data.
The atmospheric composition over
India is determined by the
sources within India
as well as by the contributions from neighboring regions. A full air quality characterization
requires a multi-scale approach, consisting of global, regional/national and
local perspectives as depicted in Figure 2. Global data, analyses and models provide
the broad geographic and chemical pattern and visualize pollutant transport into
and out of the Indian sub-continent. Surface observations are inherently local
and the analysis of local conditions is necessary for the full understanding of
air quality, particularly in mega-cities and industrial areas. Air quality
monitoring networks managed by the Indian national agencies provide important
observation data that can be augmented with satellite data and model results.
It is anticipated that a key
contribution of the proposed project will be the India-scale characterization
of air quality facilitated by the Indian and GEOSS Air Quality Communities of
Practice (AQ CoPs). The regional/India-scale observations, analyses and
modeling results can be synthesized from the combination of global observations
provided by the GEO AQ CoP and national observations within India.
Figure 2. Multi-scale
perspective needed for AQ characterization
This proposal focuses on strengthening and developing new
capabilities for Indian air quality management activities, which has ample
intellectual capacity to benefit from such infusion in a few key areas, and
which could be expected to carry the program forward operationally on its own
in approximately 3-4 years. This is a reasonable estimate for the development
of a prototype system that is ready to be transitioned into an operational
system for routine applications based on experience in related projects to
develop air quality decision support systems in the U.S.
Technical Scope of Proposed Effort
The work proposed is a collaboration among India and US organizations to develop a
prototype integrated air quality information system for India, which is linked to the GEOSS
GCI both as an information provider and as a user. The project is expected to
encompass three primary activity areas:
- Community Building
- Advancement of Information Infrastructure, and
- Enhancement of Decision Support Systems
Community Building
A Community of Practice (CoP) is a user-led community
of stakeholders, from providers to the final beneficiaries of Earth observation
data and information, with a common interest in specific aspects of societal
benefits to be realized by GEOSS implementation. Based on experiences with the
Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Air Quality Workgroup
in the United States, and the emerging GEO Air Quality Community of Practice
(GEO AQ CoP), a key objective of the proposed effort is to initiate an India
Air Quality Community of Practice (IAQ CoP) that could coordinate with
peer-level CoPs, such as ESIP and contribute to the international GEO AQ
CoP. Discussions and interactions that
stemmed from the development of this GEO Decision Support proposal have already
initiated efforts to form the India AQ CoP and interest across the India
air quality community is high. The proposed project will help formalize the IAQ
CoP and to apply GEOSS principles and best practices.
Using and enhancing the concept of the GEO AQ CoP to develop
a process for engaging organizations in a collaborative environment across the
Indian air quality research, management and policy communities as well as the
global air quality community. Community
building includes fostering education and outreach via demonstrations,
workshops and training courses to aid in more widespread use of GEOSS and
related systems, and to iteratively improve the process at multiple stages of
the project using the feedback from the user community. The community building activity addresses the
task of engaging local resources in the development of the new decision support
system, and will be led by the principal team members in India. The efforts would be directed through the
following sub-tasks:
1) Identifying stakeholders, such as air quality researchers
and managers in India,
and mobilizing information, infrastructure and financial resources
2) Conducting workshops to build capacity for access and
utilization of Earth Science Observations for decision-support,
3) Working with stakeholders in indentifying decision-making
activities and defining applications in
support of decision-making activities (not sure I understand the rest of the
sentence) and engaging in the providing and accessing of data,
4) Setting up India-specific structures to establish and sustain
an IAQ-CoP.
The principal team
members from India, foresee that the IAQ CoP will begin to engage and
coordinate around questions, such as storage, presentation, sharing data, and
use of currently available CPCB data; How best to supplement the SPCB
procedures for utilization of the CPCB monitoring network for their decision
making; Use of SPCB inventory data industry by industry; data system for area
and line sources; where are modeling efforts located , and for scales that are (a) local (b) regional (c)
global use of satellite data from ISRO and its usage; need for an operational
speciation network with resolution in terms of chemical composition for PM
measurements; geographic coverage for urban, rural and background air quality;
need to establish the role that the region has to play in the global decision
making for global decisions
The IAQ-CoP will be created through scheduling occasions for
structured national and regional level symposiums and meetings. The theme area will be “Practices and
Structures for Sustained Air Quality Management in India”
and will be supported through commitments from the GOI, Industry and hosted by
academic institutions. Stakeholders will
be invited to participate in the first such event, which will include brain
storming, establishing a need for systemic approach, demonstrations, sharing
from GEOSS experiences, and formulation of pathway for the work in India. This event will be followed by two similar
events where the progress and accomplishments will be shared. In addition to these events, specific
specialty workshops will be conducted on a more frequent and geographically
dispersed schedule throughout the country as described in the next
section. While such physical meetings
are felt as a need at the initial stages of the formation of CoP, the mode of
such meetings would be augmented and phased into a virtual mode through
suitable collaboration technologies.
Education and Outreach
An important part of the community-building will be
accomplished via end-user training activities. All training activities
will provide hands-on experience with model, satellite, and surface
inter-comparisons. We will also provide end users in India
with the skills needed for leveraging the GEOSS Common Infrastructure in order
to find and access distributed Earth Science data and tools. The
workshops will be designed to address using multiple types of information
(surface observations, satellite observations, emissions models, and air
quality models) for conducing air quality analyses and assessments and for
conducting those assessments within the GOESS and Air Quality Community
Information Infrastructures. The satellite workshops will have three main
components a) Atmospheric satellite remote sensing basics b) Accessing
Earth Science Observations via the GEOSS Common Infrastructure and
other online tools; c) Using Satellite Observations, GEOSS Common
Infrastructure and web tools for decision-support via hands-on Case
Studies. Satellite trainings will be conducted following the structure of
existing NASA Applied Sciences Program Training Workshops (Prados et. al., 2010a)
to include hands-on activities for online access, visualization and
analysis of satellite imagery. The second type of training will provide
in-depth workshops on air quality modeling , complementary to the CMAS
training to community end users on the use of the air quality models relevant
to the India
with an emphasis on their synergistic use with Earth
observations. Case Studies on utilization of both satellite and
model data will be prepared specifically for India applications to include
different types of pollution episodes, which a decision-maker may encounter in
India such as long-range transport of industrial pollution or dust
storms.
Advancement of Information Infrastructure
This aspect
of the proposed effort focuses on using and enhancing the GEOSS GCI, and
community-based extensions thereof, as defined by the data, information and
analytical needs of the India
air quality research, management and policy communities. The foundation of this task is the GEOSS
Common Infrastructure and the air quality community information infrastructure
components developed during the GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot – Phase
2 (AIP-2; http://www.ogcnetwork.net/AIP2ERs#AQ)
and currently being advanced in AIP-3. The GEOSS Air Quality community has been
building entities on top of the GCI to accommodate unique characteristics of
air quality data and analysis web services through metadata standards and an
associated community catalog (Figure 4). The resulting framework is intended to
simplify the process for providers to share their data and provide ways for web
applications and decision support systems to connect with the data.
This part of our proposal addresses the task of developing
the necessary components for an interoperable network of data and tools to
support the air quality science and management efforts in India and connect it with GEOSS.
The foundation of this task is the GEOSS Common Infrastructure and the air
quality community information infrastructure components developed during the
GEOSS Architecture Implementation Pilot – Phase 2 (AIP-2).
Figure 3: An air quality community infrastructure connected with
the GEOSS Common Infrastructure
An underlying principle of AIP is the use of Service Oriented
Architecture (SOA) with the publish-find-bind protocol, where data services are
published to a common registry, search tools allow the finding of those data,
and a wide variety of applications and tools can connect to those data for
visualization, processing or analysis. Key activities include:
·
Creation of standards-based web service
interfaces to satellite, surface and modeled data
·
Registration of web services in a GEOSS air
quality community catalog and harvesting of the Community Catalog by the GEOSS
Clearinghouse.
·
Access of services through the GEOSS
Clearinghouse with AQ Clients and portals for the use of those services in web applications
and decision support systems
The publish capability in the information architecture will
involve the creation of metadata needed for finding, understanding and using
the data. The AQ metadata record developed in AIP-2 is based on the ISO 19115
standard and can be semi-automatically generated based on a combination of
metadata extracted from web service descriptions and manually entered
information. The generated metadata record is saved into a community catalog
that is already registered as a component in the GEOSS Component and Service
Registry (CSR). The GEOSS Clearinghouses query the GEOSS CSR for catalogs and then
“harvest” the catalogs for their metadata records.
In order to find the data access services in the GEOSS
Clearinghouse one has to know what to search for and how to extract the
relevant information from the GEOSS Clearinghouse. AIP-2 has helped define this
process for AQ-related searches. General search parameters defined by the GEOSS
Clearinghouses are used as a first filtering step and then further refined in
customized search parameters specific to AQ communities.
Further, subsequent to finding the data for AQ
decision-making, there is a need to bind, or use, those data in meaningful
applications. The information returned from search results should provide the
necessary information to connect those data with processing, visualization or
analysis tools of the user’s choice. This aspect of the information
infrastructure will be a focus area for the proposed project to define
conventions for connecting GEOSS earth observation services with decision
support tools.
The end result of this task will be data services that are
made available to stakeholders in India through GEOSS along with a
capability for users to register data services with GEOSS, and mechanisms to
connect those data services for use in decision support systems.
Enhancement of Decision Support Systems
The proposed project
intends to leverage existing data and information systems, tools and
methods to facilitate the integration of global and local data from multiple
sources (surface-based and satellite measurements, models and analysis tools)
to allow air quality management groups to better understand the air quality
issues in specific regions of India, and conduct analyses, such as emission
source identification, exceptional event analyses, forecasting, assessment of
air quality scenarios and identification of air pollution hot spots in the
country.
To meet the needs of the intended beneficiaries, the
information infrastructure should effectively provide information that can
meaningfully enhance decision support systems. The project team has extensive
experience in developing information and analysis tools in support of air
quality science and management, and also has experience in communicating,
collaborating and coordinating with related systems. We seek to leverage
implemented technologies, best practices, and existing information systems for
application in India.
Existing Systems and Community-oriented Efforts
The proposed project relies on and builds upon previous
efforts. An important activity is the assessment of existing systems and capabilities
along with determination of how they are best applied to the India air quality problem.
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