scholarly journals A Facility Location Model for Air Pollution Detection

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Lancia ◽  
F. Rinaldi ◽  
P. Serafini

We describe mathematical models and practical algorithms for a problem concerned with monitoring the air pollution in a large city. We have worked on this problem within a project for assessing the air quality in the city of Rome by placing a certain number of sensors on some of the city buses. We cast the problem as a facility location model. By reducing the large number of data variables and constraints, we were able to solve to optimality the resulting MILP model within minutes. Furthermore, we designed a genetic algorithm whose solutions were on average very close to the optimal ones. In our computational experiments we studied the placement of sensors on 187 candidate bus routes. We considered the coverage provided by 10 up to 60 sensors.

Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 431
Author(s):  
Ayako Yoshino ◽  
Akinori Takami ◽  
Keiichiro Hara ◽  
Chiharu Nishita-Hara ◽  
Masahiko Hayashi ◽  
...  

Transboundary air pollution (TAP) and local air pollution (LAP) influence the air quality of urban areas. Fukuoka, located on the west side of Japan and affected by TAP from the Asian continent, is a unique example for understanding the contribution of LAP and TAP. Gaseous species and particulate matter (PM) were measured for approximately three weeks in Fukuoka in the winter of 2018. We classified two distinctive periods, LAP and TAP, based on wind speed. The classification was supported by variations in the concentration of gaseous species and by backward trajectories. Most air pollutants, including NOx and PM, were high in the LAP period and low in the TAP period. However, ozone was the exception. Therefore, our findings suggest that reducing local emissions is necessary. Ozone was higher in the TAP period, and the variation in ozone concentration was relatively small, indicating that ozone was produced outside of the city and transported to Fukuoka. Thus, air pollutants must also be reduced at a regional scale, including in China.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-74
Author(s):  
V. N. Lozhkin ◽  
◽  
O. V. Lozhkina ◽  

Introduction. St. Petersburg is the cultural and sea capital of Russia. The city is characterized by environmental problems typical for the largest cities in the world. It has a technical system for instrumental online monitoring and computational forecasting of air quality. Methods. The system maintains the information process by means of computational monitoring of its current and future state. Results. The paper describes methodological approaches to the generation of instrumental information about the structure and intensity of traffic flows in the urban road network and its digital transformation into GIS maps of air pollution in terms of pollutants standard limit values excess. Conclusion. The original information technology for air quality control was introduced at the regional level in the form of an official methodology and is used in environmental management activities.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivo Suter ◽  
Lukas Emmenegger ◽  
Dominik Brunner

<p>Reducing air pollution, which is the world's largest single environmental health risk, demands better-informed air quality policies. Consequently, multi-scale air quality models are being developed with the goal to resolve cities. One of the major challenges in such model systems is to accurately represent all large- and regional-scale processes that may critically determine the background concentration levels over a given city. This is particularly true for longer-lived species such as aerosols, for which background levels often dominate the concentration levels, even within the city. Furthermore, the heterogeneous local emissions, and complex dispersion in the city have to be considered carefully.</p><p>In this study, the impact of processes across a wide range of scales on background concentrations over Switzerland and the city of Zurich was modelled by performing one year of nested European and Swiss national COSMO-ART simulations to obtain adequate boundary conditions for gas-phase chemical, aerosol and meteorological conditions for city-resolving simulations. The regional climate chemistry model COSMO-ART (Vogel et al. 2009) was used in a 1-way coupled mode. The outer, European, domain, which was driven by chemical boundary conditions from the global MOZART model, had a 6.6 km horizontal resolution and the inner, Swiss, domain one of 2.2 km. For the city scale, a catalogue of more than 1000 mesoscale flow patterns with 100 m resolution was created with the model GRAMM, based on a discrete set of atmospheric stabilities, wind speeds and directions, accounting for the influence of land-use and topography. Finally, the flow around buildings was solved with the CFD model GRAL forced at the boundaries by GRAMM. Subsequently, Lagrangian dispersion simulations for a set of air pollutants and emission sectors (traffic, industry, ...) based on extremely detailed building and emission data was performed in GRAL. The result of this nested procedure is a library of 3-dimensional air pollution maps representative of hourly situations in Zurich (Berchet et al. 2017). From these pre-computed situations, time-series and concentration maps can be obtained by selecting situations according to observed or modelled meteorological conditions.</p><p>The results were compared to measurements from air quality monitoring network stations. Modelled concentrations of NO<sub>x</sub> and PM compared well to measurements across multiple locations, provided background conditions were considered carefully. The nested multi-scale modelling system COSMO-ART/GRAMM/GRAL can adequately reproduce local air quality and help understanding the relative contributions of local versus distant emissions, as well as fill the space between precise point measurements from monitoring sites. This information is useful for research, policy-making, and epidemiological studies particularly under the assumption that exceedingly high concentrations become more and more localised phenomenon in the future.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lalit Bhagat ◽  
Gunjan Goyal ◽  
Dinesh C.S. Bisht ◽  
Mangey Ram ◽  
Yigit Kazancoglu

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a better method for quality management to maintain an essential level of quality in different fields like product quality, service quality, air quality, etc.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, a hybrid adaptive time-variant fuzzy time series (FTS) model with genetic algorithm (GA) has been applied to predict the air pollution index. Fuzzification of data is optimized by GAs. Heuristic value selection algorithm is used for selecting the window size. Two algorithms are proposed for forecasting. First algorithm is used in training phase to compute forecasted values according to the heuristic value selection algorithm. Thus, obtained sequence of heuristics is used for second algorithm in which forecasted values are selected with the help of defined rules.FindingsThe proposed model is able to predict AQI more accurately when an appropriate heuristic value is chosen for the FTS model. It is tested and evaluated on real time air pollution data of two popular tourism cities of India. In the experimental results, it is observed that the proposed model performs better than the existing models.Practical implicationsThe management and prediction of air quality have become essential in our day-to-day life because air quality affects not only the health of human beings but also the health of monuments. This research predicts the air quality index (AQI) of a place.Originality/valueThe proposed method is an improved version of the adaptive time-variant FTS model. Further, a nature-inspired algorithm has been integrated for the selection and optimization of fuzzy intervals.


Author(s):  
Janis Kleperis ◽  
Gunars Bajars ◽  
Ingrida Bremere ◽  
Martins Menniks ◽  
Arturs Viksna ◽  
...  

Air Quality in Riga and Its Improvement Options Air quality in the city of Riga is evaluated from direct monitoring results and from accounting registered air pollutants in the city. It is concluded that from all air polluting substances listed in the European Commission directives, only nitrogen dioxide NO2 and particulate matter PM10 exceed the limits. In assessing the projected measures to improve air quality in Riga, it can be concluded that the implementation of cleaner fuels and improvements in energy efficiency of household and industrial sectors will decrease particle pollution, but measures in the transport sector will also contribute to reducing air pollution from nitrogen oxides.


Author(s):  
Jānis Kleperis ◽  
Biruta Sloka ◽  
Justs Dimants ◽  
Ilze Dimanta ◽  
Jānis Kleperis

Abstract The analysis of the results of long-term air quality monitoring in Riga is presented, which shows that in city centre throughout the measurement time (2004-2014) according to the guidelines defined by the European Union directives and Latvian laws the limits of small particles PM10 and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) are exceeded. From the nature of appearance of pollution and from the research of morphology and composition of fine dust particles it was concluded that in the city centre where the monitoring was performed the main air pollutants are caused by internal combustion engine vehicles. The measures to reduce air pollution performed by two Action Programs (2004-2009; 2011-2015) of the City Council showed that there were only two possible ways to improve air quality in urban environment ‒ to decrease the number of traffic units and/or to decrease exhaust emissions from vehicles. From the analysis of energy consumption and resources used for it the conclusion was drawn that Latvia is dependent on fossil fuel import, especially in traffic sector (99 %). A new trend has been observed in Latvia ‒ the type of cars is changing: the number of gasoline cars rapidly decreases and number of diesel cars is growing. Both fuels in exhaust gases of second-hand cars are giving high emissions of fine particles (soot) and nitrogen oxides as compared with new cars; 72 % of cars on the roads of Latvia are more than 13 years old. The switch to bio-diesel can improve Latvian statistics according to CO2 reduction target for 2020 but not the concentration of PM10 and NO2 on streets with dense traffic. Therefore, to improve air quality in urban environment and simultaneously reduce the dependence of Latvia from fossil fuel import, a scenario is proposed for the changeover to zero-carbon technologies in transport and energy production. Hydrogen is analyzed from the point of view of availability of resources and commercialized technologies. The research of the public opinion was done because there is little awareness in society about hydrogen as energy carrier and simultaneously as fuel.


2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgios Papastergios ◽  
Paraskevi Tzoumaka ◽  
Apostolos Kelessis

Air pollution has been one of the first environmental problems to be addressed by the EU and for this reason clean air is considered essential to good health. Information availability and understanding of the air quality issue is essential part of tackling it with efficiency. Having the latter in mind, the Municipality of Thessaloniki has considered relative environmental actions as an important priority and made significant efforts to include them in its short-term and long-term, already developed, strategies. Through these strategies the Municipality became partner in three important EU funded projects that are dealing with indoor and outdoor air pollution monitoring actions, namely CUTLER, AIRTHINGS, and LIFE SMART IN'AIR. The successful implementation of these projects will add to the knowledge of indoor and outdoor air quality in the City of Thessaloniki, whereas, at the same time, will improve the resilience of the city and the well being of its citizens.


2020 ◽  
Vol 211 ◽  
pp. 01005
Author(s):  
Nguyen Tan Danh ◽  
Le Minh Quang

In addition to the hot weather with an extremely high UV index, the air quality in some big cities of Vietnam also alarming. Air pollution will have a large impact on urban development and, above all, people’s health. The results of air pollution monitoring over the past time in Ho Chi Minh City in some locations show that dust pollution and fine dust concentration (PM2.5) in the air of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Ho Chi Minh City are still high and at an alarming level. This is a problem of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and a matter of concern in other countries, especially Asian countries. A few years ago, this issue was mentioned, but now it still causes frustration. The article discusses the factors that affect the air quality, and for that reason the people of the city in particular and this study must take this issue seriously and need to have effective measures.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 1479
Author(s):  
DARIMI DARIMI ◽  
Ikhwan Siregar YUSNI ◽  
Anita SOFIA ◽  
FIRDAUS FIRDAUS ◽  
SYAHRIL SYAHRIL

Air pollution will make the city environment unhealthy and can interfere with human health, therefore one must strive to not increase air pollution. One way to reduce air pollution in cities is to reduce carbon emissions and build Green Open Spaces (GOS). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to create a model for distribution of motor vehicle exhaust emissions in the city of Pekanbaru. Air pollution at a certain level can be a combination of one or more pollutants, either in the form of solids, liquids or incoming gases dispersed into the air and then spread to the surrounding environment. Further analysis of environmental factors in the form of socio-cultural, economic and ecological factors are explored in this study. Other important environmental parameters in pollutant studies are ecological factors as well. While the economic factors in question is the willingness to pay, it shows the minimum cost needed to anticipate the amount of exhaust emissions caused by motorized vehicles and calculate the economic value associated with public health. The emission of gas produced by each vehicle is below the predetermined standard quality threshold, namely LH Regulation No. 12 of 2010. Although the measurement results in Table 1 do not exceed ambient air quality standards, but the increase in a trend that can cause air quality deterioration was detected. The components in these two strategies need to get more emphasis and attention so that the existence of charcoal trading business can be sustainable. The results obtained from this study are a model of exhaust gas distribution in the form of gas emission distribution contours supported by ecological data (E), economics (E) and socio-cultural (S), especially in creating recommendation models in policy making both in the form of laws, government regulations or regional regulations, which is the simplest prerequisite for motor vehicle owners when the vehicle registration is extended. This model is better known as the E2S + H model.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivien Voss ◽  
K. Heinke Schlünzen ◽  
David Grawe

<p>Air pollution is an important topic within urban areas.  Limit values as given in the European Guidelines are introduced to reduce negative effects on humans and vegetation.  Exceedances of the limit values are to be assessed using measurements.  In case of found exceedances of the limit values, the local authorities need to act to reduce pollution levels. Highest values are found for several pollutants (NOx, NO2, particles) within densely build-up urban areas with traffic emissions being the major source and dispersion being very much impacted by the urban structures.  The quality assured measuring network used by the authorities is often too coarse to determine the heterogeneity in the concentration field. Low cost sample devices as employed in several citizen science projects might help to overcome the data sparsity. Volunteers measure the air quality at many sites, contribute to the measurement networks and provide the data on the web. However, the questions arising are: a) Are these data of sufficient high quality to provide results comparable to those of the quality assured networks? b) Is the network density sufficient to determine concentration patterns within the urban canopy layer? <br>One-year data from a citizen science network, which measures particulate matter (PM10, PM2.5) were compared to measurements provided by the local environmental agency, using two hot-spot areas in the city of Hamburg as an example. To determine how well the measurements agree with each other, a regression analyses was performed dependent on seasonal and diurnal cycles. Additionally, model simulations with the microscale obstacle resolving model MITRAS were performed for two characteristic building structures and different meteorological situations. The model results were used to determine local hot spots as well as areas where measurements might represent the concentration of particles for the urban quarter. The low cost sensor measurements show a general agreement to the city’s measurements, however, the values per sensor differ. Moreover, the measurements of the low-cost-sensor show an unrealistic dependence on relative humidity, resulting in over- or underestimations in certain cases. The model results clearly show that only a few sites allow measurements to be representative for a city quarter. The measurements of the citizen science project can provide a good overview about the tendencies of the air quality, but are currently not of sufficient quality to provide measurements calling for legal action.</p><p>The model results were used for the project AtMoDat. AtMoDat is an attempt to create a data standard for obstacle resolving models based on the existing Climate and Forecast (CF) conventions. A web-based survey is developed to get information on the requirements for the data standard. The next step is to extend the collection of model characteristics and eventually to provide a generic scheme.</p><p><strong>Acknowledgements</strong><br>This work contributes to project “AtMoDat” funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research under the funding number 16QK02C. Responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors.</p>


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